Starwood bullish on Thai tourism
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc, a Connecticut-based hotel management and leisure company, is optimistic that Thailand's tourism industry will fully recover this year.
The three main local hotels managed by the chain are being renovated at a combined cost of almost 1 billion baht by Grande Asset Hotels and Property Plc, owner of the hotels.
A renovation budget of 147 million baht has been earmarked for the Westin Grande Sukhumvit Bangkok, 200 million for the Sheraton Hua Hin Resort & Spa and 600 million for the Sheraton Hua Hin Pranburi Villas.
"Revenue and occupancy rates for the three hotels will grow by 20-25% this year, while the hotel industry's growth is estimated at 11%," said Martin Raich, general manager of the three hotels.
"After the renovations, the average room rate at all three will increase by 5-10% this year."
The overall hotel industry in Bangkok is expected to improve in 2015 to the level seen in 2013, which was a good year for Thai tourism thanks to an absence of political conflict and protests for much of the time.
The political turmoil affected the three hotels in the first half of last year, but second-half figures recovered to a level not much different from previous years.
Starwood's strong customer base is expected to be another important business driver this year.
However, the average room rate of hotels in Bangkok remains lower than in other tourism cities in this region.
Mr Raich said Bangkok was known to have cheaper prices for five-star hotels.
To increase Bangkok's room rates, transport and tourism facilities must be developed, he said.
"Bangkok has good venues and shopping centres, but it's useless if it takes two hours to get to those places. And the skytrain is very crowded now," Mr Raich said.
Meanwhile, he said the Sheraton Hua Hin Resort & Spa would retain its position as the top wedding resort destination in Thailand for the Indian market.
The hotel expects to organise the wedding ceremonies for 20-25 Indian couples this year.
Each couple spends 4-11 million baht on accommodation and the grand ballroom excluding the event organiser, flowers and other expenses.
A 200-million-baht chandelier was installed in the ballroom just to serve this wedding market, while the meetings and incentives market is expected to recover this year too.
To sustain long-term growth, each hotel must have a good balance of customers and not rely mainly on tourists, Mr Raich said.
Recent tourism problems include the Russian economic crisis and rouble devaluation