21 Million Tourists, And Still Counting: Thailand

[Nisa]

Not to steer this off topic of why lemoncake's hotel business is failing and back into tourism but ;-)

I forget to mention this a few weeks ago. I was flying back to BKK from Chiang Mai and while waiting for my plane one of those poll people (assume TAT) came up to us and wanted to survey us. The wife and I were watching a movie and the form looked long so I wasn't into it. So, when she asked where I was from I told her Bangkok and she moved on. But I guess these pollsters do exist in terms of collecting that peripheral data about things like average money spent. I kind of wish I did talk to her to find out what they ask and how they ask it but was just not into at the time and we wanted to see the end of the movie on the laptop before we boarded.

If you do not mind, could you point for me on any thread where myself or anyone related to me stated that my hotel business is failing

Surely you didn't miss the the little "wink" symbol at the end of the sentence you are questioning did you? Is it really too much for you to understand that it was simply making light of your numerous complaints on ThaiVisa about how bad your business is doing in terms of decreased customers and how you relate it to a decrease in tourism therefor you disbelieve tourism number are up?

[lemoncake]

Not to steer this off topic of why lemoncake's hotel business is failing and back into tourism but ;-)

I forget to mention this a few weeks ago. I was flying back to BKK from Chiang Mai and while waiting for my plane one of those poll people (assume TAT) came up to us and wanted to survey us. The wife and I were watching a movie and the form looked long so I wasn't into it. So, when she asked where I was from I told her Bangkok and she moved on. But I guess these pollsters do exist in terms of collecting that peripheral data about things like average money spent. I kind of wish I did talk to her to find out what they ask and how they ask it but was just not into at the time and we wanted to see the end of the movie on the laptop before we boarded.

If you do not mind, could you point for me on any thread where myself or anyone related to me stated that my hotel business is failing

Surely you didn't miss the the little "wink" symbol at the end of the sentence you are questioning did you? Is it really too much for you to understand that it was simply making light of your numerous complaints on ThaiVisa about how bad your business is doing in terms of decreased customers and how you relate it to a decrease in tourism therefor you disbelieve tourism number are up?

If this is not trolling, i do not know what is

[chiangmaikelly]

Not to steer this off topic of why lemoncake's hotel business is failing and back into tourism but ;-)

I forget to mention this a few weeks ago. I was flying back to BKK from Chiang Mai and while waiting for my plane one of those poll people (assume TAT) came up to us and wanted to survey us. The wife and I were watching a movie and the form looked long so I wasn't into it. So, when she asked where I was from I told her Bangkok and she moved on. But I guess these pollsters do exist in terms of collecting that peripheral data about things like average money spent. I kind of wish I did talk to her to find out what they ask and how they ask it but was just not into at the time and we wanted to see the end of the movie on the laptop before we boarded.

If you do not mind, could you point for me on any thread where myself or anyone related to me stated that my hotel business is failing

Naturally if you fail to find it, it is safe to assume a public apology is forthcoming right?

So If you make an error do you apologize? Didn't you say I said I worked at a 5 star hotel and that occupancy had an 100% upper limit? Just going by memory but I think you said those things.

[Nisa]

Not to steer this off topic of why lemoncake's hotel business is failing and back into tourism but ;-)

I forget to mention this a few weeks ago. I was flying back to BKK from Chiang Mai and while waiting for my plane one of those poll people (assume TAT) came up to us and wanted to survey us. The wife and I were watching a movie and the form looked long so I wasn't into it. So, when she asked where I was from I told her Bangkok and she moved on. But I guess these pollsters do exist in terms of collecting that peripheral data about things like average money spent. I kind of wish I did talk to her to find out what they ask and how they ask it but was just not into at the time and we wanted to see the end of the movie on the laptop before we boarded.

If you do not mind, could you point for me on any thread where myself or anyone related to me stated that my hotel business is failing

Naturally if you fail to find it, it is safe to assume a public apology is forthcoming right?

So If you make an error do you apologize? Didn't you say I said I worked at a 5 star hotel and that occupancy had an 100% upper limit? Just going by memory but I think you said those things.

Personally I have got no problem admitting I made a mistake but your point is well taken as I believe he mentioned his belief I had a restaurant or something too but the bottom line is I think even a child can recognize I was being sarcastic about the this topic and I believe another one that seemed to go down the road of his business problems and his failing to maintain his past occupancy rate and this of course being attributed to his belief tourism is down in Thailand..

[thaibeachlovers]

You are correct on all your points, however when you do annual reporting or say yearly reports it is what it is.

If you were to buy a hotel, i doubt you would be asking occupancy rate for high season or 1 month, you would be asking for occupancy rate for the year to know if its worth investing.

Quarterly reports are never accurate as it does not represent true business values, profits and losses for the year.

No doubt renting the rooms twice is a profitable business, HOWEVER it is only possible for airport hotels and short time rooms in brothels.

Backpacker hostels have a different formula because they rent beds, and some rooms have 10 bunk beds.

Not being in the hotel business of course I could not know as much as you but ....

Would think monthly and quarterly occupancy would be very important in determining busy and low seasons when you would not need to have as much staff and your expenses would be considerably lower. Without knowing seasonal rates you would be understaffed and overstaffed.

As for only airport and brothels having short time guests that is just absolutely ridiculous as it is not at all uncommon for business people to rent rooms during the day and not spend the night.

I can not speak for how others run their business, but i do not lay off staff depending on the season, because recruiting and training staff costs much more than keeping them on for low seasons.

While knowing monthly stats is internally important to know your financial position, it does not represent the true yearly value as i already explained.

Pattaya is full of business people, right? and in the movies business people also turn maids into savy business operators, in reality, most hotels rely on Internet bookings, and once the room is sold, it is removed from the system. If the guest checks out early, room will go back on the market, that does not mean it will be sold again, this especially applies to large hotels with large number of rooms, because due to its size room release will take hours after the guest has checked out

The first big hotel I managed was a Holiday Inn. I can still remember my boss coming in and telling me, "September is the slowest month of the year, all the kids go back to school, no one travels or spends money. I want to see half of your staff gone on the first of September because half of your guests will be gone."

Which is why so many people hate capitalism.

[chiangmaikelly]

Not being in the hotel business of course I could not know as much as you but ....

Would think monthly and quarterly occupancy would be very important in determining busy and low seasons when you would not need to have as much staff and your expenses would be considerably lower. Without knowing seasonal rates you would be understaffed and overstaffed.

As for only airport and brothels having short time guests that is just absolutely ridiculous as it is not at all uncommon for business people to rent rooms during the day and not spend the night.

I can not speak for how others run their business, but i do not lay off staff depending on the season, because recruiting and training staff costs much more than keeping them on for low seasons.

While knowing monthly stats is internally important to know your financial position, it does not represent the true yearly value as i already explained.

Pattaya is full of business people, right? and in the movies business people also turn maids into savy business operators, in reality, most hotels rely on Internet bookings, and once the room is sold, it is removed from the system. If the guest checks out early, room will go back on the market, that does not mean it will be sold again, this especially applies to large hotels with large number of rooms, because due to its size room release will take hours after the guest has checked out

The first big hotel I managed was a Holiday Inn. I can still remember my boss coming in and telling me, "September is the slowest month of the year, all the kids go back to school, no one travels or spends money. I want to see half of your staff gone on the first of September because half of your guests will be gone."

Which is why so many people hate capitalism.

When you find a system where the guys at the top are making the same money as the people on the bottom let me know.

[Nisa]

I would guess this is the norm unless you have a hotel that has not seasonal adjustments and would bet in a place like Thailand there are lots of workers who only work certain months of the year then go back home to either take care of the kids, farm or do whatever only to return in the high season the following year.

Even in Thailand were the wages are lower it certainly would add up having many staff from maids, cooks, maintenance, wait staff and so on all standing around doing nothing. I love going to the beaches in the off season but know the public/beach area will often be less clean as they are operating on a skeleton crew and find a lot of the smaller hotels don't even open their restaurants. Then again, there are no crowds and I am paying half the price.

Again not in the hotel business but to me it would seem insane to have the same level of staff and services available during the X-Mass and New Year weeks (highest of the high season) all year round ... you'd go broke.

It is irrelevant is hotel is busy or not, it is still open, so you still need all the staff to be there. In the quite seasons there is always tons of work to be done for the next year, which includes inventory, upgrades, changes and training.

Again laying off staff costs money, so does employing new and training new staff.

If we talking about Thailand, definitely laying off staff is not an option as it takes months just to find someone, and few months to train them for them then to be gone.

So if i have good staff, i keep them on and wear the costs.

Just as an example, it took me 1.5 years to find good, hard working maid and 1 year to find good cook, i certainly would not be laying either of them off even if i had totally empty hotel for few months

My mistake for not being clearer as I was talking in general terms of hotels that have more than a few rooms and/or don't already operate on a tiny staff. If you ever go to the tourists spots such as many of the beaches/island where the height of the high season and low season are like night and day then you will find that there is a HUGE difference in number of staff at these hotels during these different seasons ... excluding of course the very small places offering rooms were regardless if busy or not they only have a couple staff on hand to run (and often live at) the place. Maybe you were generalizing as I did but only speaking to very small hotels but if not some of your comments leave me baffled since you are saying you are in the hotel business and as a a customer (not in the business) I know these things are just not true.

Would it be too much for you to share more about your hotel to help better understand why you have seen such a drop off in customers despite tourism numbers increasing? I realize you think it is because tourism is actually down and not up but this just seems to go against all the facts. I'd just be curious to know the appox. number of rooms (if you have one less guess does that mean sales are down 25 or 50%?), what city you are in (is it a big tourist spot?) and what kind of clients you market to and generally have (internet, walk-ins, word of mouth -- Europeans, Americans, Asian, Thai ....), what is your price range and average stay time (again type of customer) .... Not trying to give you a hard time but just want you too understand your view about tourist number and possibly show you that your lack of customers has nothing to do with lack of tourists but may have something to do with lack of the type of tourists you are used to.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Nisa