Thai tourism fares well despite crisis

Thai tourism fares well despite crisis

BANGKOK (Reuters): Thailand's tourism industry is thriving as
the weak baht currency enables local hotels and tour operators to
offer cheap holidays, the head of one of Thailand's biggest
hotels said on Monday.

Jean-Fernand Wasser, general manager of the Royal Cliff Beach
Hotel in Pattaya, said Thai operators have stressed Thailand's
stability while neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia suffer image
problems due to political tension and riots.

"Do not promote beaches these days, let's promote the fact you
can come here much cheaper than before," Wasser told Reuters in
an interview.

"You have to be fast to ride the cheaper baht...we should
resort to this hard sale, just for this year."

Wasser, a seasoned French hotelier working mostly in Asia and
the Pacific over the past 30 years, took the top post this month
at the 1,041-room resort hotel overlooking Pattaya Bay, southeast
of Bangkok.

About eight million foreign tourists visited Thailand in 1998,
up from 7.2 million in 1997, Thai officials said, making it the
only major Southeast Asian destination to see such an increase
this year.

The Thai baht, at 36.30 to the dollar this week, was about 29
percent cheaper than it was in July 1997. It hit a low of 56.9 to
the dollar in January.

Despite a similar depreciation in the Malaysian ringgit,
Malaysian tourism had declined about 23 percent this year, Wasser
said. Nor has the plunging rupiah helped Indonesian tourism,
since many top hotels quoted room rates in U.S. dollars.

Tourism to Malaysia was hurt by the political fall-out of
former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's corruption trial and
tourists' fears Malaysia faced the same ethnic and political
strife plaguing Indonesia, Wasser said.

Riots broke out in Jakarta in May during mass public
demonstrations against former Indonesian President Soeharto.

Violent protests against the country's new government and
President B.J. Habibie have erupted in recent months.

Tourism authorities in Singapore and Hong Kong estimate their
respective visitor arrivals to decline by about 15 percent and 12
percent this year.

But Wasser said Thailand had none of these problems.

He said the Royal Cliff was investing about one billion baht
($27.5 million) to build a large exhibition and convention center
next to the resort hotel.

He said the new facility, due for completion in late 1999,
would feature a seaside convention hall with seating capacity for
5,800 people to rival Bangkok's Queen Sirikit Convention Center.

"We will go heavy on MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions
and Exhibitions), focusing on high-end conventions for
professionals in medical, legal, architectural sectors -- people
in the higher strata of society," Wasser said.