I remember flying into Bangkok several years ago, when the City of Angels was going through the trauma of the Asian financial crisis. With the fall of the baht that set off the catastrophic domino of financial collapse within East Asia, the region fell into chaos, much like what its non-financial cousin SARS did last year.
Remember the unfinished skyscrapers and half-built condominiums? But that’s history now.
The Thai capital is teeming with developments – from hotels and serviced apartments to condominiums and shopping malls, Bangkok is well on its way to becoming the Tourism Capital of Asia – the mission statement for the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
No one’s concerned about a glut of rooms – estimates for tourist arrivals are 20 million by 2008, enough to fill all the rooms at the inns.
There’s optimism in the air. At our regular Breakaways travel trade networking function in Bangkok last month, there were almost as many hoteliers from new properties as there were from existing ones.
Serviced apartments, targeting the ever increasing corporate and expatriate market, are also on an upswing.
But can the city’s infrastructure be able to handle the seemingly endless stream of tourists?
The new Suvarnabhumi airport is expected to be ready by September next year but that’s just one infrastructure issue (a new report last week said the prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has ordered the construction of the airport to be speeded up after finding it may not be completed before its planned September 2005 opening). The newly-opened subway has a limited reach.
With the volume, comes the issue of yield. The TAT likes to portray Thailand as a value for money destination but foreigners see it as a cheap destination (something which the TAT acknowledges).
So a guest in Thailand staying for a week, may be spending only the equivalent of a guest staying, say, three days in Singapore or Hong Kong.
The implications for yields are quite clear.
But volume works for countries like Thailand which have a variety of product offerings. Moreover Thailand is also pushing for big-scale conventions – and with them the high-per-capita spending convention delegates. And with the recent marketing deal with Cendant, Thailand has set new benchmarks in destination marketing.
While Thailand can deal with both ends of the visitor spectrum, high-yield visitors may be the ideal solution for small cities like Singapore which do not have as much to offer as Thailand or sustain a longer visitor stay.
Yet it’s interesting that the Uniquely Singapore destination branding launched by the Singapore Tourism Board this year, seeks to embrace both the leisure and convention visitor.
The pre-occupation with absolute tourist arrival numbers is something NTOs should rethink.
But emerging destinations like Beijing – with its abundant historical and cultural attractions – are taking a leaf out of the experience of mature destinations.
Never undersell.
“China has never been and won’t be a cheap destination,” Galen Zhang, managing director of (International MICE) of CYTS Tours told me at the luxurious lobby of one of the city’s grandest hotels, The Beijing Hotel.
Looking at the furious pace at which five-star international chain hotels
(and six-star as some are referred to there) are sprouting in Beijing – all in the run-up to the biggest sporting spectacle the city has seen – the 2008 Olympics – “cheap” will be as anachronistic as communism.