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.