Pattaya Offering Free Hotel Rooms, Big Discounts for Low Season

Forget the sensationalized headlines, Thailand is clam, peaceful and hungry for visitors. And, to make it even more enticing to visit, government and industry officials are making great offers to have tourists return to Pattaya.

According to this story in the Bangkok Post:

Tourism operators in Pattaya plan to offer free hotel rooms from May 1 to Oct 31 to attract local and international tourists during the low season.

Apart from hotels, restaurants and shopping malls will also join the campaign, offering discounts up to 50%. Final details will be decided soon.

Chatchawal Supachayanont, president of the Eastern Chapter of the Thai Hotels Association said, “with this campaign, we hope tourists and meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition activities will be lured back to Pattaya again and tourism sentiment will improve as well.”

Chatchawal said Pattaya’s hotels had about 20,000 rooms and that all operators would join the promotion.

In addition to the free-rooms promotion, hotels and tour operators are also offering some of the biggest-ever discounts to lure travlers back to the Land of Smiles.

Niramon Makornpruttipong, regional manager for administration and member-support services at Best Western International, said the hotel chain was offering 20-40-per-cent discounts at all of its properties in the Kingdom for the rest of the year.

Like other players, Best Western is also throwing in more amenities. Erawan Group president and CEO Kasama Punyagupta said the impact of the recent riots was like that of the airport blockades last year.

“Hotels have been running 50-60-per-cent full, which is 10-15 percentage points off last year’s level,” he said. “Over the next four weeks, this most recent political unrest will no doubt put pressure on hotels’ occupancy rates in a similar pattern as to what happened after the airport closures.”

The recently opened Le Meridien Chiang Mai is reportedly cutting room rates more than 50 per cent in order to draw tourists.

The Le Meridien Khao Lak Beach & Spa Resort is selling a holiday package to locals and expat residents for Bt2,199 net per room per night.

The deal includes daily breakfast for two, a 20-per-cent discount on food, 30-per-cent off of spa treatments and 20-per-cent less for airport transfers. This offer also comes with various stimulating recreational activities.

The Ambassador Hotel Bangkok is offering three nights of accommodation for the cost of two until October, while the Zeavola Resort on Krabi’s Koh Phi Phi is offering a complimentary choice of a 60-minute massage for one or two persons per stay until June.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) yesterday announced a new campaign called “12 months, 7 Stars, 9 Suns” to boost domestic tourism all year round.

TAT chairman Weerasak Kowsurat said the TAT’s board was reviewing if it would change the advertising agency for foreign markets from McCann, as well as the marketing theme. He said some foreign tour operators had stopped selling packages to Thailand.

More details are in this story from The Nation newspaper.

So, if you’ve been considering a dive holiday in Pattaya, there’s never been a better time!