Hotels and tour operators have been urged not to offer extra-low room rates and low-priced package tours to foreign agents, because of the possibility of long-term damage to the tourist industry.
Thai Hotels Association (THA) president Prakit Chinamourphong said average hotel-room rates in Bangkok were already lower than those in other major cities in the region. […]
“What we’re considering is how we can prevent hotels and tour operators from offering foreigners further discounts.
They should be trying other strategies instead of cutting prices,” Prakit said, adding that cutting prices would not help operators to survive in the long term and would also damage the overall tourism industry.
A recent report on the Phuket hotel market prepared by local consultancy C9 Hotelworks said discounting by Phuket hotels cost the industry on the island US$300 million (Bt9.92 billion) in room revenue last year. (Nation)
How on earth people can be so blind ? So utterly and convincingly dumb ? Even by thai standards, Prakit is breaking the sound barrier of dirt stupidity.
This man basically is saying : “don’t lower your prices too much… you would risk to attract more customers”.
This man doesn’t understand that hotels are not lowering their rates for pleasure… but because of a very challenging environment !
-a freaking global crisis
-higher competition (tourism is a global market and supply is increasing while demand is shrinking)
Lower solvent demand + higher supply= prices going down.
This rule is so obvious. But still, Prakit doesn’t get it.
Prakit thinks that he’s leading… a cartel. Well, we all know that thai business operators hate competition (tik mak ! too much work !)… But tourism is a global market. Even in Thailand, the smartest and the strongest will reduce their prices. Because they have no choice.
Prakit, being a perfect thai, would like the hotels… instead to increase their prices ! It’s a good old trick business love to do here. Zero imagination. Zero knowledge. Zero talent. Little people mafia-minded. Little crooks.
We are going to rephrase for Prakit : you can say whatever you want, if you continue to build 5 stars “spa” hotels accross Thailand, and if the global crisis continues to deepen then prices will go down. Because all the hotels in the world will compete for less and less tourists.
Lowering prices is only one further step… toward bankruptcy. But it allows a few to survive, while the sheeps, the weakest are slaughtered.
It’s called natural selection. And it’s’ a very healthy mechanism in any free market.
Overcapacity must be destroyed.
And It will.
People like Prakit, like all his westerns peers (AKA the clowns : Bernanke, Trichet, Geitner, Obama, Sarkozy etc.), live in a Lalaland where banks, businesses (and banks and businesses preferably owned by friends of course) are always growing, never failing.
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