Guest houses must now get a hotel license--any info?

[BestB]

5 minutes ago, cmsally said:

There are already certain clauses in the agreements that seem to refer to "whatever the rules in your country" etc.

I would imagine the govt is scrambling around trying to get some kind of power over them or their local offices.

No doubt but OTA ‘s are a business and unless you not paying commisssions or killing guests I do not see them stopping to sell 90% of their inventory 

[JAZZDOG]

21 minutes ago, BestB said:

I do not have amd never had this problem .

 

i have a policy, booking will be charged 50% at the time of booking ( which I can change to 10% or 100%)

 

should credit card provided be invalid , guest gets an email to update credit card info within 24 hours . If nothing provided I cancel the bookings .

 

what you need is virtual cc capability on your credit card machine, without out booking .com should be last company to use

I thought about that but it would cut bookings and exposure. But maybe just leave the folks that actually show. Have you found that to be the case?

[BestB]

13 minutes ago, JAZZDOG said:

I thought about that but it would cut bookings and exposure. But maybe just leave the folks that actually show. Have you found that to be the case?

Nope, not interested in those who provide invalid cards or do not have cards. I am not in the business of hope. As they say no money no honey.

 

booking no show rate is as high as 95% if no credit card needed.

 

with credit card needed to secure the reservation, non valid cards is about 90%

[cmsally]

We have a listing for "no credit card needed" on Booking and our no show rate is probably less than 5%.

For our sector of the market it would work against us to require a deposit.

For people who book a long way ahead we request a cancellation if they don't reply to messages. For those with a Thai phone number we sometimes call.

[BestB]

1 minute ago, cmsally said:

We have a listing for "no credit card needed" on Booking and our no show rate is probably less than 5%.

For our sector of the market it would work against us to require a deposit.

For people who book a long way ahead we request a cancellation if they don't reply to messages. For those with a Thai phone number we sometimes call.

Good to see this model works for you and people show up . 

 

Booking for me is at the bottom of the list, worst admin, worst service , worst payment method and shittiest customer segment. 

[NanLaew]

55 minutes ago, WinnieTheKhwai said:

 

Yes, the Booking.com site and overall business process is a complete disaster.   Lots of people use it to just have 'something' in place for a year into the future and then cancel when they actually travel.  Meanwhile that prevented other people from booking.   Plus hotels have to chase guests to get paid, they don't provide a payment gateway service.

 

No wonder AirBnB is walking all over the old model of doing business in the hospitality industry.

Recent experience with a hotel I use frequently and always booked through agoda. I selected the "booking only - pay at hotel" option where agoda only takes card details as a guarantee and I pay cash at check-in. This has been standard operating procedure for quite a while. However, on check in this time, the reception presented me with 2 photocopies of a credit card reader print-out cut to size and printed on the backside of some previously used A4 paper in the way that Jomtien Immigration 'recycles' paperwork. The slip had the card details I had given agoda as only a guarantee but had been charged the day and time I made the booking on agoda, the previous day. There was no option to pay cash unless I wanted to bugger about with processing a card refund and being out of pocket for longer. I will take this up with agoda.

[JAZZDOG]

4 minutes ago, cmsally said:

We have a listing for "no credit card needed" on Booking and our no show rate is probably less than 5%.

For our sector of the market it would work against us to require a deposit.

For people who book a long way ahead we request a cancellation if they don't reply to messages. For those with a Thai phone number we sometimes call.

At the end of the month we have 25% no shows. We don't even consider long out bookings as they rarely materialize, We send three messages, no reply we tell them no room, call booking.com. We're small and to tell you the truth we count on the sites that collect in advance and returns and stay 90%. Booking.com is a waste of time personally.

[JAZZDOG]

9 minutes ago, BestB said:

Good to see this model works for you and people show up . 

 

Booking for me is at the bottom of the list, worst admin, worst service , worst payment method and shittiest customer segment. 

HaHa! So true, I check out where the guest is coming from and there are the regions you can trash from the jump because those groups have a .020 batting average. 

[cmsally]

2 minutes ago, JAZZDOG said:

HaHa! So true, I check out where the guest is coming from and there are the regions you can trash from the jump because those groups have a .020 batting average. 

Yes I must agree to achieve a very small no show rate , we do a fair amount of racial profiling!

[johnoko]

Put since recently Booking.com requires all guests to put in there credit card details even if they opt for pay latter. And then we they don't show up you can easily collect the first day fee from there credit card. As you can set in your policy, this option has been introduced not so long ago 

[BestB]

13 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

Recent experience with a hotel I use frequently and always booked through agoda. I selected the "booking only - pay at hotel" option where agoda only takes card details as a guarantee and I pay cash at check-in. This has been standard operating procedure for quite a while. However, on check in this time, the reception presented me with 2 photocopies of a credit card reader print-out cut to size and printed on the backside of some previously used A4 paper in the way that Jomtien Immigration 'recycles' paperwork. The slip had the card details I had given agoda as only a guarantee but had been charged the day and time I made the booking on agoda, the previous day. There was no option to pay cash unless I wanted to bugger about with processing a card refund and being out of pocket for longer. I will take this up with agoda.

I think you misunderstood how pay at hotel works .

 

you provide credit card on Agoda to secure the booking but it gets sent to hotel, in case of no show hotel charged the card not Agoda . This is why hotel had your card details 

[BestB]

Just now, johnoko said:

Put since recently Booking.com requires all guests to put in there credit card details even if they opt for pay latter. And then we they don't show up you can easily collect the first day fee from there credit card. As you can set in your policy, this option has been introduced not so long ago 

Can not collect so easily when they provide non valid credit card, in many cases they provide their atm card number 

[JAZZDOG]

3 minutes ago, cmsally said:

Yes I must agree to achieve a very small no show rate , we do a fair amount of racial profiling!

I knew there had to be some asterisk next to that low no show %. For

[JAZZDOG]

5 minutes ago, BestB said:

Can not collect so easily when they provide non valid credit card, in many cases they provide their atm card number 

I have heard many use non valid cards to just get a reservation to show IO when they arrive. I don't understand why people don't pay ahead and insure their room will be waiting or at least call to verify. Before I owned this business I used booking.com and sometimes show up but no room. Twice happened here in Pattaya and desk person had a blank stare "no have", "no name in system". Now I know I was in the system but was bumped for a guest that had actually paid ahead of time. I cant blame them and I no longer use booking.com when I travel with knowledge gained working both sides. Airbnb works best for me as long as I don't use instant book. I like being able to cull out based on past reviews. length of stay etc. Expedia then Agoda come in next. We have a great location and a very popular café with great coffee and breakfast so walkins are a good share of our business and they stay longer return multiple times as a rule and are much less demanding.

[thaibeachlovers]

Back to the subject of the thread, I walked along Moon Muang yesterday and looked for closed signs. Only saw signs in Thai, so don't know if they were closed or not. A few only asking for monthly stays, and a few For Sale or For Rent signs. Most places appeared to be open.

In a different part of town, a nice looking hotel closed because of police action. Staff person said closed for 2 months. Don't know what difference 2 months makes, but that's what he said.

 

Occurs to me that a certain element will not be happy with closed places, as they will not be collecting from closed places.

[MekkOne]

So, I just came back from a trip to the local Amphoer and Obotor (I'm living in Krabi province), after a couple of hours lost in both the offices I was sent to talk to a civil engineer that is the one that is suppose to inspect the buildings for the local government to certify that they are suitable for whatever you want to do inside of them... Comes up that basically as BestB was saying there is no way, even for a small NON hotel (we are type-0 less than 4 room and less than 20 guests) to be legal if the building hasn't been built for be an hotel. In my point of view this law (old or new doesn't matter) just draw a line in the sand as the finish line of the tourism in Thailand. I could change our business in a restaurant or something else very easy but the question is why? were the customers for this new business will arrive from if they don't have a single hotel were they can stay? The engineer told me there is a queue of over 300 business waiting for him visit to make the paperworks, yet he was sitting in his office drinking coffee... Time to say goodbye to the land of smiles I guess.

[cmsally]

I heard that many small hotel owners will be going en masse to Tesabahn this week to apply for the building license (Or 1). There have been rumours that because of the small amount of time left there would be claims of the "queue would be too long" etc. So I guess going en masse they are  more likely to accept paperwork because of group pressure. But of course in many cases futile as the building will never fit the specifications.

[BestB]

16 minutes ago, cmsally said:

I heard that many small hotel owners will be going en masse to Tesabahn this week to apply for the building license (Or 1). There have been rumours that because of the small amount of time left there would be claims of the "queue would be too long" etc. So I guess going en masse they are  more likely to accept paperwork because of group pressure. But of course in many cases futile as the building will never fit the specifications.

Submitting paperwork would be easy, getting it approved or processed is another matter

[kannot]

On 5/28/2018 at 8:02 PM, simon43 said:

 

 

 

I seem to recall that ex #2 managed fine with her 10-room guesthouse by telling the Tessabahn that 6 rooms were being redecorated (which they were not), and handing over 2,000 baht...  She managed to make a decent profit for several years with 10 rooms fully booked most of the year (she ran a transit guesthouse next to Phuket airport).

Wife makes 80k a  month from 4  rooms shes been doing it for over 10 years, i  just get the renovation stuff to do. 80k is a  lot of money for most Thais.........

[BestB]

2 minutes ago, kannot said:

Wife makes 80k a  month from 4  rooms shes been doing it for over 10 years, i  just get the renovation stuff to do. 80k is a  lot of money for most Thais.........

80K/month is a lot of money in general for anyone  in Thailand.

[MekkOne]

2 hours ago, BestB said:

80K/month is a lot of money in general for anyone  in Thailand.

yeah this was what my wife was doing, taking care of her family too, of course the initial capital came from me 5 years ago. I don't care about the money what is pissing me off is that somewhere is fine somewhere else isn't. And yeah I don't want to start a restaurant business, I had it for several years in my country, too much work and with this stupid situation who knows how the next season will go...

[BestB]

1 minute ago, MekkOne said:

yeah this was what my wife was doing, taking care of her family too, of course the initial capital came from me 5 years ago. I don't care about the money what is pissing me off is that somewhere is fine somewhere else isn't. And yeah I don't want to start a restaurant business, I had it for several years in my country, too much work and with this stupid situation who knows how the next season will go...

To put you at ease, its NOT ok anywhere. Some just have not been raided yet and some were fast enough to remove all "daily" signs. Those who were not selling online also avoided being raided. But raids have not finished yet, just no media reporting, raids continue on daily basis.

 

I know a small place right beside mine was ok, only because she does not sell on line and when they came to raid, she was totally empty, no bookings at all. so no proof of any kind.

[MekkOne]

9 minutes ago, BestB said:

I know a small place right beside mine was ok, only because she does not sell on line and when they came to raid, she was totally empty, no bookings at all. so no proof of any kind.

we removed signboard and any sign, all booking channels are closed and nobody was raided in here yet, but a lot of places are just close down for peace of mind.

I think that if your neighbour hasn't been raided doesn't mean she's ok and comply with the law, she was just lucky, they went to another town and raided it, then went back a couple of times check if the places were still closed...

[cmsally]

4 hours ago, MekkOne said:

So, I just came back from a trip to the local Amphoer and Obotor (I'm living in Krabi province), after a couple of hours lost in both the offices I was sent to talk to a civil engineer that is the one that is suppose to inspect the buildings for the local government to certify that they are suitable for whatever you want to do inside of them... Comes up that basically as BestB was saying there is no way, even for a small NON hotel (we are type-0 less than 4 room and less than 20 guests) to be legal if the building hasn't been built for be an hotel. In my point of view this law (old or new doesn't matter) just draw a line in the sand as the finish line of the tourism in Thailand. I could change our business in a restaurant or something else very easy but the question is why? were the customers for this new business will arrive from if they don't have a single hotel were they can stay? The engineer told me there is a queue of over 300 business waiting for him visit to make the paperworks, yet he was sitting in his office drinking coffee... Time to say goodbye to the land of smiles I guess.

If you have 4 rooms or less , you should still be OK. I thought that applied over the whole country ?

[BestB]

1 minute ago, MekkOne said:

we removed signboard and any sign, all booking channels are closed and nobody was raided in here yet, but a lot of places are just close down for peace of mind.

I think that if your neighbour hasn't been raided doesn't mean she's ok and comply with the law, she was just lucky, they went to another town and raided it, then went back a couple of times check if the places were still closed...

NO chance she could comply, simply no evidence of her doing daily rentals.

[BestB]

1 minute ago, cmsally said:

If you have 4 rooms or less , you should still be OK. I thought that applied over the whole country ?

Do not hold me to it, but i believe that has also been challenged and no more. Remember reading some article just the other day. 

[cmsally]

3 minutes ago, BestB said:

Do not hold me to it, but i believe that has also been challenged and no more. Remember reading some article just the other day. 

Crikey someone must be really pissed off with Air BnB ! I know people who have those "homestay" papers, so maybe now worth nothing. Will keep watching for any updates on that one.

[cmsally]

If this indeed proves to be true , would be interesting to see where the "challenge" came from.

[BestB]

3 minutes ago, cmsally said:

If this indeed proves to be true , would be interesting to see where the "challenge" came from.

Guessing the very same place where the dragon lady hides. The Hotel Association ?

[cmsally]

They just did a recount of the smaller places on AirBnB I guess.