Thailand bouncing back

There are thousands of hotels in Thailand and it’s hard to generalize about them but overall it seems that great deals are more scarce than some foreign visitors might have hoped a few weeks ago after the airport closures in Bangkok. The general trend seems to be that business hotels in Bangkok have had trouble bouncing back but that beach resorts are doing OK. Here’s an article from today’s IHT on the topic:
In the closing weeks of 2008 it looked like Thailand might be beckoning visitors for an opportunity of a lifetime: cheap luxury hotel rooms and empty beaches. The global economic downturn combined with the seizure of Bangkok’s two main airports by protesters in late November brought the travel industry to its knees. In early December staff at Bangkok’s top five-star hotels greatly outnumbered the dwindling number of guests.
But as has happened many times in recent years when tourism suffered from disasters natural and human-made - the tsunami of 2004 and military coup of 2006 among them - the foreigners have returned to Thailand.
“It’s started to bounce back,” said Pornthip Hiranyakij, secretary general of the Tourism Council of Thailand, a travel industry association. She estimates that beach resorts in southern Thailand were about 80 to 85 percent full during the holiday season compared with about 90 percent last year.
A staff member at the high-end Four Seasons hotel in the northern city of Chiang Mai said the hotel would be “crowded” for the rest of January; on the resort islands of Samui and Phuket the beach chairs filled up for the holidays.
The Thai central bank reported this week that the weeklong closure of Bangkok’s airports by protesters cost the country 290 billion baht, or $8.3 billion, in lost income, about 3 percent of the country’s total gross domestic product.
Thailand remains a relatively cheap place to visit. Hotel Web sites are offering off-season rates for what would normally be peak season, even around Chinese New Year, when visitors from Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China normally flood the country. The Year of the Ox starts Jan. 26.
Some luxury hotels are discounting more than others. Hotels that cater to business travelers were worst affected by the cumulative effect of the business downturn, Thailand’s political crisis and the airport closure. The Conrad Hotel, which caters to business travelers and diplomats, is offering rooms for $150. By contrast the riverside Mandarin Oriental Hotel, popular with well-to-do tourists, showed no discounted rates in early January on its Web site and was offering rooms upwards of $389.
The early months of the year are traditionally considered the high season in Thailand because it rains less frequently and temperatures are generally cooler. But travel industry executives say they are most concerned about the political climate.
Thailand’s three years of political turbulence climaxed Nov. 25 with the seizure of both of Bangkok’s airports by anti-government protestors. The airports reopened eight days later, but only after hundreds of thousands of foreigners were left stranded.
Now with a new government in power and the protesters strutting victoriously - the new foreign minister was one of the anti-government protesters who shut down the airport - the tables are turned.
Supporters of the previous government are out on the street protesting. Thailand’s political crisis looks likely to drag on.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced that an upcoming summit of regional leaders would be moved from Bangkok to the beach resort town of Hua Hin because of fears protesters could disrupt the event. The summit by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which will begin Feb. 27, was initially scheduled to take place in December but was postponed because of the country’s political crisis.