Bangkok the world's next mega-city, experts tell TTF 2018 audience

Within five years, the rapid expansion of Bangkok’s metro systems will succeed in opening up unprecedented spaces in the city, and with it huge opportunities for the travel and tourism industry, they said.
This has not been lost on one of Thailand’s most prominent real-estate developers, Sansiri, which will bring one of the most dynamic New York hospitality brands – The Standard – to Bangkok in a major foray into hospitality as it seeks to bring new cutting-edge brands to the capital.
Sansiri chief executive officer Apichart Chutrakul gave the keynote interview to open TTF 2018 on the theme of “MEGACITY BANGKOK – A Tourism and Hotel Futurescape” to a packed ballroom of almost 700 travel industry delegates from Thailand and across the region at the InterContinental Bangkok.
In his opening remarks, TTF 2018 co-organiser and managing director of C9 Hotelworks Bill Barnett, said: “In five short years the electric metro across greater Bangkok will reach a length of 464 kilometres. This will surpass London, which stands at 402km with the Underground, and New York City’s Subway, which measures 380km. The great promise of the East has now become the new West. Important will be the access to three international, interconnected airports – Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang and U-Tapao.”
Global research firm STR’s area director Asia-Pacific Jesper Palmqvist added that Bangkok was on a strong growth trajectory in terms of hotel performance, and infrastructure development would only support this further. 
“With almost three years of stable growth in terms of hotel performance, Bangkok has firmly put the 2014 decline far behind it. By November 2017, RevPAR [revenue per available room] had grown 3.4 per cent year over year, and this against a backdrop of some reasonably strong supply increase at 4.1 per cent,” he added.