It is low season, so an occupancy of 40-60 percent is totally normal. High season will start in November, when everybody will start moaning again, that there are now too many tourists. Another fact is: we wanted to go to Phuket or Krabi in August, and prices have been astronomical. We had cheap deals during this time of year before, but this year none were to be had. Also, many domestic flights in Thailand were cancelled until October due to fuel costs. Going from Udon Thani to Phuket directly was impossible, hence it would have cost double to fly the whole family down -- a prohibitive cost. While this obviously affected us more than most tourists, those that would be travelling around the country instead of staying in one place would be also negatively impacted. As always, it is Thai greed shooting their own foot. We rented a car and drove around Isaan instead, which was very nice, with regular hotel rooms being about € 10-25 (and who would have thought beforehand that there are 50m olympic-size competition pools for the swim training of my daughter in the university campuses in Udon Thani and Khon Kaen, open to the public during afternoons -- she had better training sessions there than would have ever been possible in a hotel pool, for ฿ 60 entry).
