Two tier pricing at hotels

[Jay_Jay]

Between what's happening with the economy around the world, compounded by what's happening here locally of late, I thought that over this long-weekend, Thai hotel / resort owners might have changed their tune.

I started searching for places to stay over the long weekend in Pattaya or Hua Hin for my family and friends. We were looking for around 5 rooms for 2 nights accommodation. Nearly all of us are either ลูกครึ่ง 'look kreung' of some description and / or hold dual citizenship.

Out of 15 places that I made enquiries too, 13 of them charged up to 200% more for Thais whem compared to the 'Farang' price.

The first question was normally 'Farang or Thai' (speaking in Thai).

With one of them, I asked 'Does it make a difference?' ... 'Just a moment'.

After being put on hold, they came back asking - please tell me if you're Farang or Thai.

I said 'what if I hold dual citizenship?' - 'what nationality?'

After about another 2 minutes, she came back and said - the Farang price is 2990 Baht per night - Thai Price 4500 Baht per night. That was the Long Beach Garden Resort. Incidentally - The slogan for this resort is "A Place Where You Belong..."

This echoes discussions with many other places. When speaking with Pattaya Park Beach Resort, I was told that I would need to fax a list of the names to reception upon booking. If any of the names look Thai, they will cancel the booking. Should we turn up there and they discover that anyone looks Thai in the group, we would be sent away, or be forced to pay twice the price of the Farang price.

This is very sad. I am not for two tier pricing in either direction. I would have thought that the Thai tourism industry would be doing anything they can to get revenues in these politically / economically unstable times.

In Thailand we always hear about 'samanachan' and 'samaki' - reconciliation and unity ... but at the same time, we're also actively implementing apartheid policies that do nothing to help either of these 'Thai' values.

Edited December 5, 2008 by Jay_Jay

[Briggsy]

What would be their incentive for doing this?

[Ulysses G.]

The reason they do this is because Thais only rent rooms, but usually ignore other hotel services which inflate the bills by quite a bit.

I remember how angry the hotels in Chiang Mai were several years ago during the big flower festival. Thai people had rented all the rooms during high season and foreigners had to go elsewhere. The rooms were all booked out, but they still felt that they had lost a lot of money.

This year, however, I would think that they would be happy with any customers at all.

[PhilHarries]

One of the first things that amazed me when I first arrived in Thailand was the signs outside hotels proudly proclaiming "under European management" as if this conferred some status of quality.

Anyhow, this double pricing standard certainly puts a new twist on the usual farang whinge.

What do they expect to gain from it? Maybe they want to keep their rooms free for the floods of high spending "quality tourists" expected through the arrivals hall any day now.........................NOT.

One can only hope they fall flat on their ar5es and end up below the profitable occupancy line.

[Soutpeel]

Certainly believe there is a degree of discrimination towards Thai's from Thai's in some hotels. To relate an incident at a hotel in BKK, I had booked about 4 nights in a hotel in BKK as I had to go to the office in BKK, had given the names, myself and wife (Thai) and told them she would come to the hotel to check-in after dropping me off in the car at the office.

On arriving at the hotel she was not allowed to check-in, even though she had a resevation number and her credit card in hand, and they kept asking where is the farang ?, where is the farang ?...obviously my wife was highly p*ssed and called me at work, I called the hotel to tell them to let her check-in and they would not unless I was with her...in the end I had to go down to the hotel and check-in in for her, in the end, I changed my booking, stayed one night at that particluar hotel and found another hotel down the steet which was Thai friendly.

The strange thing was, the hotel duty manager could not understand why I was upset and had cancelled the rest of my booking...!!!

Suffice to say I have never stayed at that hotel again, and as a result of this incident, its has cost this hotel of over THB 250,000 in bookings from myself since this, as I am in and out town pretty frequently and staying in a hotel for two/three weeks at a time now is not unusual..

Edited December 5, 2008 by Soutpeel

[Carib]

2 Thai `s rent a room and five sleep there, It is another reason why some hotels are not to keen on renting to Thai people.

[digitele]

2 Thai `s rent a room and five sleep there, It is another reason why some hotels are not to keen on renting to Thai people.

Or more....Thais understand Thais better then us.

[dave111223]

2 Thai `s rent a room and five sleep there, It is another reason why some hotels are not to keen on renting to Thai people.

More sleep 8, bring a rice cooker and an electric barbecue.

I still don't think there should be 2 prices, whoever gets the wrong end of the stick. If the above reasons are actually the reasons for the higher thai price. Then hotels just need to be more vigilant in kicking out/charged fees for people who sleep too many in a room.

[londonthai]

travelling with my wife I never had this problem in guest houses (including mentioned pattaya and hua hin), charging a few hundred baht/night. Because we had an impression that they would charge more for a foreigner (has more money and doesn't know the local prices), my wife was usually enquiring/negotianing the price.

might be several factors or their combination, why thai are charged up to 200% more in big hotels:

- because rooms are usually let for the flat rate, independent of how many guests are staying in the room, they owners can suspect that several guests/the whole family will stay in only one room (so higher use of electricity for hot water and air conditioning as well as room furniture)

- they might be afraid of prostitutes creating a wrong image of the hotel (around banglampu area in bangkok many owners claim, that it's police outright preventing them from renting out to thai, althou some other GH do rent to thai, for the regular price)

- the owners are afraid that thai guests are more likely to steal hotel property - as thai usually pay cash rather than cc there is no chance of recovering the loss. Foreigners in expensive hotels and with large bills usually pay cc, so even after the check out, to owner might charge for the missing items.

- thai might be staying only for a night or two (usually over the busy weekends), foreigners stay longer, sometimes for a week or two - renting to thai short term would block a chance of renting to foreigners long term.

[cheynewalk]

Unfortunately a similar situation exists in Bali. Many guesthouses there are loathe to rent out rooms to the locals. They pack a heap of people in there, hammer the electricity and bathroom, cook their own food in the room and leave the places absolutely filthy and smelly.

[GuestHouse]

I don't think this has anything to do with hating anyone, but everything to do with dumb business practices and the idea that the hotels are entitled to as much of their customers' money as they wish to take.

Thailand has a dual pricing structure and in this case, Thais are being asked to pay the higher price, the other 364 days of the year they do not.

Welcome to the Farang experience.

[Heng]

I say to those Thais... if you don't like it, go home! A completely uneven playing field in our favor and folks think to complain about whistles the refs are using.

[fredfromalaska]

if its common 4 thais to have dubble or tripple the normal occupancy they should pay dubble or tripple the price, it makes sense to me.

[mrtoad]

I have little sympathy, as it's been stated a number of times how the dual pricing is practiced everywhere else to the detriment of Farangs.

However, I do think dual pricing is poor business practice, and if hotels are charging higher prices that goes completely against what TAT were saying about concentrating on the domestic market this season.

[britmaveric]

Dunno know quite a few thai(s) including my gf that get lower prices from hotels because they are thai. I'm assuming it must depend on the place.

[JimmyTheMook]

This policy is very selective many hotels run weekend promotional rates advertised in local newspaper sthat ONLY apply to Thai Nationals

[ballbreaker]

My Thai wife always gets 10 percent off the rate hotel charges falangs.

[dotcom]

I would like to call BS on this story. Thanks.

[Heng]

It's not BS, but it's not a big deal either. One I often run into are what the various Le Meridien hotels charge (although it's a difference in charge between locals and all foreigners... not farangs, which is probably what the case really is in most of these instances), with Thais getting charged more.

[gaza1]

I made a reservation in the Shangrila in Bk and when Mr and Mrs Griffiths arrived we were told they had overbooked and didn't have a room.

I believe this was blatant racism to wards my Thai wife,after some arguing my wife contacted her Aunt who's father works in a big organization in Lopburi.

With in 10 minutes the manager received a phone call and was waing me and my wife,we ended up with a suite in the executive floor for the same price as a standard room:D

They seem to assume that any Thai lady married to a foreigner must be a prostitute.

My wife is currently completing her doctorate degree at Thammasat University

I have also had a similar problem in the Conrad Bangkok.

[Lancelot]

Dunno know quite a few thai(s) including my gf that get lower prices from hotels because they are thai. I'm assuming it must depend on the place.

Brit has it right IMHO. Also, how about the restaurants that list the menu in Thai and English at inflated prices (fried rice B150+) Farangs will pay the list price; Thais will pay 50% of list.

TIT

[digitele]

Dunno know quite a few thai(s) including my gf that get lower prices from hotels because they are thai. I'm assuming it must depend on the place.

I really think it's whom there are sizing up on the other side of the front desk.

My wife Thai-American breezes through every venue usually with the discounts.

At our favorite hotels in Bangkok, she just gets handed the keys as soon as she's there.

It's the individual, not racisim. They want to book the rooms, not problems.

Edited December 5, 2008 by digitele

[mrbojangles]

Dunno know quite a few thai(s) including my gf that get lower prices from hotels because they are thai. I'm assuming it must depend on the place.

Same here. MrsBoJangles always does the bookings for us. Never had an issue, that i am aware of.

[zaza]

This 200% raise is not for Thais only, to all whom they live here,and planning to go for a holiday ,I heard many friends of mine complaining about it. It's the "recovery" plan of those business' owners to recuperate the finical losses they had in this tourist season.

This weekend is a long one, starts at 5th(today) and ends at 10th (for some),Muslims will have their yearly religious holiday on the 7th (for 4 days) ; so; it's a kinda of peak season for the local tourism.

[TexasRanger]

This country is very discriminative. I was talking to a hotel manager who said they don't have Thais because they sleep many to a room and only pay for 2 and they also wont rent to Indians because they smell. How sthat for a modern attitude, this was in pattaya by the way.

[siam4ever]

This country is very discriminative. I was talking to a hotel manager who said they don't have Thais because they sleep many to a room and only pay for 2 and they also wont rent to Indians because they smell. How sthat for a modern attitude, this was in pattaya by the way.

I'm sure that five minutes after you left the manager told an Indian customer about how atrocious the Texans smell!

[LinkPopularity]

One of the first things that amazed me when I first arrived in Thailand was the signs outside hotels proudly proclaiming "under European management" as if this conferred some status of quality.

but it does ...

[MiG16]

Ive edited topic title to make it more reflective of the discussion

am also moving this to the Travel sub-forum

cheers

[Gary A]

I would like to call BS on this story. Thanks.

No, it's not BS. My Thai wife and I plus another farang friend and his Thai wife rented rooms. My wife's sister and her Thai husband were coming a little later so my wife paid for a room for them also. When the Thai couple got there they were told that the hotel does not rent rooms to Thais. My wife went down and after a heated discussion, her sister and her husband were able to stay that night. We no longer stay there either.

[dopster]

I contacted the hilton hotel in phuket a couple of years ago to enquire about a room as I had family over from the UK. I was quoted 4,700 baht for the night, yet when I mentioned I lived and worked here and had a Thai wife they said I could get much cheaper if my wife booked it at only 3,200 a night. Double tier pricing as always been a factor within Thailand and always favoured Thai's. Makes a nice change if Thais are getting charged more than the foreigners.