Chiang Mai’s small to medium hotels face challenges

[rooster59]

Chiang Mai’s small to medium hotels face challenges

By The Thaiger

 

FILE PHOTO (This hotel is not for sale!)

 

Chiang Mai’s small to medium accommodation sector is facing fresh challenges as the tourist mix in the northern city changes, and shrinks in arrival numbers.

 

The fallout from declining tourist arrival numbers, especially Chinese since the Phuket Phoenix tourist boat tragedy in mid-July, is forcing more than 10 small hotels and hostels in Chiang Mai to put their properties up for sale.

 

According to Nikkei Asian Review, the offering selling prices range from a few million baht up to 50 million baht as the hotel or hostel operators have been hard hit by the sharp drop of tourists arrivals from China since July 5 since the boat tragedy in the Andaman Sea south-west of Phuket when 47 Chinese tourists drowned.

 

Full story: https://thethaiger.com/thai-life/property/chiang-mais-small-to-medium-hotels-face-challenges

 

 

-- © Copyright The Thaiger 2018-11-25

[BritManToo]

Nothing to do with them being closed down for not complying with the new (enforcement of?) city building regulations then?

So much open space and parking required for so many rooms.

[Just1Voice]

Funny.  This article bemoans the lack of tourists, yet, a week or so ago, there was one talking about it good it was in Chiang Mai.  So, which is it?

[nursebob]

they also said that there was only a 20% drop in Chinese tourists, all from that part of Thailand?

[simoh1490]

We discussed this already, these are either licensing issue hotels as BM points out above or they are fairly recent leasehold ventures by Chinese proxies designed to capitalise on the Chinese masses.

[cmsally]

This article really doesn't have a clue what it is talking about. Logically it would mean the larger hotels are even harder hit and there is no mention of them. Is it because the larger hotels belong to conglomerate investors that are too big to fail and don't rely on high occupancy to make a profit?

 

 

A lot of the recently opened smaller hotels , if thai, are families that have gone into tourism because of the demise of other businesses. Tourism is seen as one of the last bastions for small investors as the other sectors have more or less been taken over by the usual big names. 

[connda]

4 hours ago, rooster59 said:

The fallout from declining tourist arrival numbers, especially Chinese since the Phuket Phoenix tourist boat tragedy in mid-July, is forcing more than 10 small hotels and hostels in Chiang Mai to put their properties up for sale.

Small and medium sized hotel, and especially hostels, cater almost exclusively to farang tourists.  Farang tourist numbers have been declining steadily for years in Chiang Mai, but were not helped when the TAT and other business associations flatly stated that farang tourist were basically no longer their focus.  Add to that the junta's scouring away of street markets, imposing regulations on business in the name of 'Order', and basically killing that which brought farang tourists in the first place...well, don't complain after you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[connda]

2 hours ago, Just1Voice said:

Funny.  This article bemoans the lack of tourists, yet, a week or so ago, there was one talking about it good it was in Chiang Mai.  So, which is it?

Officially - "It's great!!!"  (the word directly from Thai officials)
Unofficially - "It sucks!!!" (the word directly from the street)

[terminatorchiangmai]

And still building more hotels in and around Chiang Mai.

Maybe its time to stop giving licences for new hotels to be build?

Or would that mean logic thinking ? Then forget about it!

[Ulic]

Wondering if these small and medium-sized hotels are fully/properly licensed or do they use the brown envelope licensing method. The brown envelope method may not be viable with a hotel licensing crackdown and tourism downturn.

[cmsally]

Actually a lot of the smaller hotels are directed to the Chinese market as well as a few hostels. Most of these seem to be run by the Chinese.

If anything I would say the larger/more expensive hotels have largely been kept afloat by the Chinese the past few years, so these should be taking a hit too.

[Brigand]

I don't think a fall in the current tourism dynamic is a bad thing for Thailand and the locals themselves. It would give them pause for thought and maybe some introspection as opposed to continually pursuing this greedy headlong charge for every higher tourist numbers, at any price, and the destructive consequences that go along with it unless properly managed...which isn't happening.

 

2 hours ago, cmsally said:

Logically it would mean the larger hotels are even harder hit and there is no mention of them.

As for larger hotels (and other businesses) excluding international chains like say Marriott etc. which can weather such conditions due to a large international presence, it wouldn't surprise me that many other locally owned, or Chinese owned via proxy, are used for money laundering purposes and care not for actual occupancy rates or real business figures as revenue inspection/scrutiny here seems to be quite absent (especially for the rich elite) and only occasionally get caught out with that probably happening due to them upsetting someone important, some higher power or it ends up in the media and there is no choice but to investigate. Just the small and some medium sized businesses that are trying to actually do the business are the ones suffering. No SFO or effective IRS really here and investigators may well be threatened off if they did try to uncover anything along these lines. Obviously, as mentioned, licensing issues could also play a part.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Brigand

[mickymouse1]

So big hotels are doing well?How did they cope before the arrival of Chinese tourists?

 

[Stargeezr]

I have seen so many gated communities with just a few of the houses lived in

and some that have totally failed, and have only a few Thais living in a few of he 20 to

30 houses. Has that situation changed as well. NO! This is Thailand and that kind of

stuff, or building too many hotels hasnot as well.

Geezer

[1337markus]

especially Chinese since the Phuket Phoenix tourist boat tragedy in mid-July,

 

Its a total fake news story, topic is Chiang Mai so why is it linked to a Phuket issue?????

 

The demise of tourists in high season has been happening for 2 years now in CNX ask the local business people. So its part of TAT denial and loss of face that has come home to roost!

[totally thaied up]

The Golden Goose for the last 50 years has been the farang. Kill them off and butter your bed with Chinese Tea Drinkers and this is what you get.

 

Sow what you reap

[tonboy]

6 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Nothing to do with them being closed down for not complying with the new (enforcement of?) city building regulations then?

So much open space and parking required for so many rooms.

Those who are closed now are not Hotels, but bigger guesthouses. If the guesthouses have only 4 rooms and a maximum capacity of 20 beds, most these rules do not apply. 

[simoh1490]

2 hours ago, totally thaied up said:

The Golden Goose for the last 50 years has been the farang. Kill them off and butter your bed with Chinese Tea Drinkers and this is what you get.

 

Sow what you reap

It's reap what you sow!

[meinphuket]

Pandering to the Chinese invasion alienated the Westerners who put it (and all other tourist destinations in Thailand) on the map in the first place. As a hotelier, and long time resident, I am quite pleased with the marked decrease. Occupancy is not my God, a decent yield with lesser occupancy  is.

[hansnl]

5 hours ago, connda said:

Small and medium sized hotel, and especially hostels, cater almost exclusively to farang tourists.  Farang tourist numbers have been declining steadily for years in Chiang Mai, but were not helped when the TAT and other business associations flatly stated that farang tourist were basically no longer their focus.  Add to that the junta's scouring away of street markets, imposing regulations on business in the name of 'Order', and basically killing that which brought farang tourists in the first place...well, don't complain after you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Ahhhhhh.

In your view it is all the fault of the current government.

Really?

Edited November 25, 2018 by hansnl

[manhood]

For more and more i read articles about tourism for more i find out that statistics fail, wrong information, and many "faked" news from official government side!

It's like that, don't trust any statistics you had no hands on (to manipulate)

[simoh1490]

16 minutes ago, manhood said:

For more and more i read articles about tourism for more i find out that statistics fail, wrong information, and many "faked" news from official government side!

It's like that, don't trust any statistics you had no hands on (to manipulate)

Anything to do with statistics and numbers doesn't go don't well with most TVF posters. You could suggest that 2+2 = 4  and there would be posters who claim the answer was rigged, calculated by monkeys, influenced by the elites or was a manipulation by TAT and that by next month it will be back to 3, which is where it should have been in the first place...big sigh.

[simoh1490]

4 hours ago, totally thaied up said:

The Golden Goose for the last 50 years has been the farang. Kill them off and butter your bed with Chinese Tea Drinkers and this is what you get.

 

Sow what you reap

If I read things correctly, farangs represent only a small percentage of tourist visits to Thailand:

 

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/tourist-arrivals-in-thailand-by-country.html

[BritManToo]

5 hours ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

I have seen so many gated communities with just a few of the houses lived in

and some that have totally failed, and have only a few Thais living in a few of he 20 to

30 houses. Has that situation changed as well. NO! This is Thailand and that kind of

stuff, or building too many hotels hasnot as well.

Geezer

The Thai population is going down, so I wonder who is buying all the new houses they are building.

It can't be the Chinese tourists.

[Ctkong]

12 hours ago, connda said:

Small and medium sized hotel, and especially hostels, cater almost exclusively to farang tourists.  Farang tourist numbers have been declining steadily for years in Chiang Mai, but were not helped when the TAT and other business associations flatly stated that farang tourist were basically no longer their focus.  Add to that the junta's scouring away of street markets, imposing regulations on business in the name of 'Order', and basically killing that which brought farang tourists in the first place...well, don't complain after you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Maybe you are right but the common people played no part in the decisions of the authorities.. incompetent market study can result in poor executions ...

[mduras01]

There are only so many Chinese with passports, and I don’t think they come twice to the same spot—I mean there are MANY countries out there to visit. Perhaps a combination of Phoenix, Trump tariffs, and moving onto other destinations...?

 

Only issue now is how to dismantle all those latex shops.