36th Skal Asian Area Assembly

A lifetime of SKAL

:: A Lifetime of SKAL ::
	Pictured being presented with an Honorary Award by Skal International Asian Area President Mr. Earl Wieman, is Thailand's 'Mr. Skal' Khun Malai Sakolviphak. Khun Malai's award was made during the 36th Skal Asian Area Congress in Macau and is in recognition of more than 40 years of active membership of Skal Inter-national. Khun Malai is currently President of Skal International Thailand.
People Making a Difference in Hospitality
Recently turned 75-year old Malai Sakolviphak, vice-president at Pacific Leisure Group travel agency, isn’t your ordinary senior citizen. In fact, it’s rather difficult to think of him as a senior in terms of age considering the vitality and energy he still possesses. However, it’s quite easy to regard him as a senior when it comes to the travel industry if you consider his past career and accomplishments. In that sense there are few in the country that would be considered to be a senior to Mr. Malai in any sense of the word.
He’s been involved in the travel and airline industry here since 1949 when he started working in a five-person office as a 17-year old. That job only lasted for 36 years but when it was over he stayed in the airline business, moving over to be the General Manager for United for another seven years. He’s much better known to people in the hotel and travel industry both, however, as a director and president of a number of different organizations related to the industries. He’s given his time to be the president of the Airlines Club Association, the PATA Thailand chapter and the Skal Club of Bangkok. With all of these presidencies he must have some skill as a politician, possibly making use of his political science degree from Tharmasart University. He’s still active in business and with Skal, and seems to show no signs of slowing down. He plans to most likely retire in a year or two which will be a loss for the industry he’s been so successfully involved with so many years.

25th April 2007

Travel and Tourism

Hotel Report - April 2007 Q1

by Mr. Andrew J Wood, Skal International Councillor Thailand 

TAT Update

TAT are still confident that 14.8 million international visitor target can be reached for 2007.The TAT Governor, Ms Phornsiri Manoharn, announced that TAT will  also be opening new offices in Moscow, India and the Middle East.

In a recent briefing, Ms Phornsiri expressed short-term concern at the downturn in international arrivals from Japan and Singapore, and from the business and meetings sectors in general, due to the current uncertain political environment in Thailand. However, tour operators reported that while demand from Asian markets had softened, European leisure demand was increasing to compensate. In the past, 50% of online leisure booking requests were turned down due to excess demand. With fewer business visitors, more hotel beds and airline seats were now available to holiday buyers.

The Governor reported the TAT did not fear competition from neighbouring countries due to Thailand’s variety. "Thailand has everything except casinos and snow," she said, adding that such variety plus Bangkok’s role as an aviation hub serving 98 airlines gave it a distinct advantage over neighbouring countries.

With over 50% of tourists to Thailand -- and over 60% of Japanese -- being repeat visitors, she said Thailand would continue to gain valuable business by being a gateway hub to the Mekong region. For example, over 87% of all visitors to Myanmar enter from Thailand, she said. In addition TAT would increasingly concentrate on attracting weekend shopping, dining and golf traffic from Singapore and Hong Kong.

MICE Market
The market is awash with bad news for this sector. Security and political uncertainty are the major factors.

SONGKRAN / EASTER
Early indicators are that hotels saw a decline on last year. Very few hotels reported full house as in previous years. The outbound market however was ‘buoyant’ over the holiday period. Road deaths were still horrendous, 361 up 77 on last years deadly seven day period.

FORECAST
With little goods news around coupled with a strong baht, rising energy and labour costs, hotel GOP’s are expect to fall TY-LY in the second quarter. Occupancies are off approx 10-15% on LY but REVPAR is higher.

LEGAL
Further restrictions on alcohol sales, with legislation planned to limit the times alcohol can be sold in hotels and restaurants is unwelcome news for the industry. THA takes up the cause.

Travel Agent Report - April 2007 Q1
By Mr. Tom Bishop,
Managing Director, DTC Travel, Bangkok

Regional Airfare Hub
Even with the current strong baht situation , it seems that Thailand's place as the regional hub for international discount outbound fares is assured for a good while yet as a glut of carriers promote their destinations from the kingdom with a series of post Songkran deals e.g. Gulf Air, Royal Brunei, Indian Airlines, Jet Airways, All Nippon and Air Mauritius.
In dollar terms, long haul fares and Round the World fares, especially in business and first class, have been "cheap" since the 1997/1998 currency crash, when compared to other regional hubs, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur. Only the latter, has seen any reasonable challenge to Thailand's dominance in this field, but with "nett" agency fares still a strong feature in the local market, as opposed to published fares with agency handling fees (the norm for N. America, Europe and the Antipodes) airfares continue to provide a major portion of income for many travel operators, even with additional bank guarantees now being required from carriers under IATA rulings.

With the sales personnel of many "second string" carriers or minimally represented airlines needing to retain employment, bargain low fares become the norm during times of potential austerity. Not a high profit situation, but certainly a means of survival for sales personnel and ticketing agents alike.
The mentioned ticket -issuing bank guarantee situation caused a knock-on effect with the a short term cancellation of sub-agent credit lines provided by the major IATA ticket agencies prior to Songkran 2007.It is plainly obvious that, in future, during peak travel periods, companies (both suppliers and sub agencies) must ensure sufficient capital back up to meet the demands of their clients' ticketing.
Naturally, those that continue to concentrate on ticketing only, or certainly as a major portion of their turnover, will place themselves in a precarious position - a situation that has seen many small travel operators fold in the last decade, most notably in Singapore as a close to home example.
On the plus side, many regional businessmen continue to originate their intercontinental ticketing in Bangkok because of the highly favorable rates and many Middle East expatriates and their families are seen to be now doing the same with their home leave periods i.e. one way to BKK and onward ticket purchase from here.
Coupled with the very economical rates for good hotel space, the overnight hotel/onward ticketing scenario continues to be a welcome source of income, even with the aforementioned "strong" baht.
For regional travel to Hong Kong, Suvarnabhumi connections from domestic flights have produced a niche market that has been exploited by Hong Kong Express, a carrier now operating Chiangmai - Hong Kong with Boeing 737-800 equipment, twice weekly, non stop. This alleviates very long waits or enforced overnights in Bangkok due to the inconvenient connecting times created by the dual operations for Bangkok to Chiangmai services from both Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang, especially when using the lower cost options on the route i.e. Emirates, Gulf, China, Kenya, Sri Lankan and Air India.

Tourist numbers TO Thailand
They have dropped for the third straight month, although the total figure for 2007 thus far shows an increase.
East Asia, with Japan leading the way is the most significant loss at 8.39%, as this represents the kingdom's largest inbound market. Both China and Singapore dropped to 24.10% and16.09%, respectively.
The sharpest drop in arrivals is actually Vietnam, which fell 31.99%. However, its market share is only 0.74%, compared to last year’s equally low 1.12%.
T.A.T. report that the number of international tourist arrivals at Suvarnabhumi reached 2,610,662 for the first quarter of 2007, a 1.81% increase over the same period in 2006.
The Middle East market at 30.27% and Europe at 13.34% show the biggest increase for the compared period.

In percentage terms, the countries with the highest increase of travellers to Thailand during the past three months are Argentina and Brazil, with increases of 64.43% and 29.89% respectively.
A.T.T.A. has reported that tourist numbers received by members at the airport fell 14% with several operators stating the increased media coverage of unrest in southernmost Thailand as the critical reason.

Governments proposed new standards for tours and consumer protection
Travel agencies claim that the existing Travel Agency Business and Guide Act already cover these standards.
The idea of setting up new standards for tour sale contracts, initiated by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ Travel Agency Business and Guide Committee is objected to by the Association of Thai Travel Agents who claims that sales contracts used at present are reliable as they follow the country’s civil law. Moreover, foreign tourists are already protected by the consumer protection act in their country of origin, which are even stiffer than Thai law.
According to the Travel Agency Business and Guide Act B.E.2535, Section 26 fixes the regulations for advertising documents that travel agents give to the customers. The documents must be submitted to the registrar in prior to distribution and contain six components: the name of the travel agents, the place of business and license number, the time for each tour, the rates and any service fees, the types of vehicles used on the tour, the destination and any stopovers including any places of interest in the tour, the nature and type of accommodation and the number of meals provided.
The fact remains that the Ministry still reports complaints, especially from Thais, accusing tour operators of not providing full tour aspects.

(Figures courtesy of Travel Trade Report and T.A.T.)
 

Late news
In an attempt to offset inbound low booking numbers , Thai domestic have introduced a 50% airfare deal in hope of resurrecting business from the domestic market over the upcoming predicted lean months, no doubt also providing a hard competitive edge to the low cost carriers serving similar domestic destinations. This applies to economy class travel completed from April 18-30 June inclusive.

Aviation Report - April 2007 Q1
by Mr. Florian Preuss
Manager Thailand and Mekong Region
Etihad Airways

Airline Update:

Following rumours that Thai Airways (TG) will cancel its non-stop services to LAX and JFK and sell the aircraft used on these routes, the airline has announced that it will instead increases these services to daily frequencies and will take delivery of all remaining Airbus A340-500/600 series aircraft it has on order.

Gulf Air, as part of its restructuring process, has announced the closure of several routes, including Bangkok-Hong Kong. It will also suspend services to Singapore, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Sydney and Dublin.

Airports Update:

Don Muang Airport (NBK) has reopened for selected domestic flights only without incident. The following flights now operate from NBK:

1. Orient Thai/One-Two-Go: All domestic flights

2. Nok Air: All domestic flights (services to India about to be launched but airport TBC)

3. PB Air: All domestic flights

4. Thai Airways Intl.:

5. Foreign & Domestic Charter Flights: Some operate from NBK (please check with your    airline or tour operator)

Hand Baggage Restrictions update:

The following counties have recently introduced restrictions on liquids carried in hand luggage. For further details on these restrictions, please check your airline’s website:

Hong Kong, South Africa, Japan, Egypt, Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea (please check before you travel).

[Reproduce with the kind permission of BCCT]

Soji Robert, local media and tourism pioneer, Thailand resident for 57 years.

DIED: Veeman Soji Robert, Monday 29 January, after a prolonged illness. He was 82. A permanent resident of Thailand since mid 1949. Mr. Robert was a leading travel industry figure for more than four decades, heading the local Pacific Asia Travel Association chapter as its chairman and also president of the Skal Club of Thailand for a number of terms during his career.

He founded Temple Films shortly after taking up residence in Thailand and was credited with securing the first cinema advertising spots in the country. His company was later amalgamated with Pearl and Dean. He founded the first consumer travel publication in Thailand, Look East, selling it later to the current owner, Satish Sehgal.

However, what gave him most pleasure was working for associations such as Pata Chapter and Skal Club, supporting a Bangkok Post charity and representing his country of birth as its honorary Consul-General for Ceylon, an appointment he held from 1965.

Mr. Robert was a mentor in the early days of Thailand's advertising and tourism industries, who gathered around him writers, advertising executives and media representatives to share a Thai meal and a 'highland malt'. Conversations would drift from the finer points of the English language to his favourite subject, tourism promotion and the power of the customer. He would chuckle over his favourite drink reminding his fellow word smiths, sales and advertising colleagues no matter how smart their campaigns and copy writing appeared to be 'The customer is the most important person in the world.”

He is survived by his wife, Matana Robert, and two daughters, Siengpin Vorasirin and Nilnetr Robert. Soji was a Skalleague for more than 40 years and a former Past President of the Thailand National Committee and Bangkok Club and also Honorary member of Skal International Bangkok.