Over 3.6 million hotel rooms booked in Thailand under tourism stimulus campaign

The Nation/Asia News Network

BANGKOK — The number of hotel room bookings under the “Rao Pai Tiew Gun” (Let’s travel together) campaign has reached 3.6 million as of Sunday.

Traisuree Taisaranakul, the deputy government spokeswoman, said on Sunday that travelers are still booking hotels in the major tourism cities, most of them in the western and eastern regions. People mostly booked hotels near the seaside for mostly one-night stays. For long-period travel, people mostly booked hotels in the southern provinces, especially Krabi, for an average of two nights.

She added that the booking process that opened on Saturday was going well and people would start traveling from July 24 as the long holiday period would be from July 25-29.

The Rao Pai Tiew Gun campaign is one of the government’s tourism stimulus measures, providing 40 percent discount per night (but not exceeding five nights) to 5 million travelers.

The spokesman warned hotel operators to desist from cheating or inflating the room price. There are government agents scanning and comparing the prices. Any hotel found to be cheating will be disqualified immediately, the spokeswoman said.