Thailand’s Hotel Industry Will Add 10,000 Rooms by 2024

BANGKOK – The Thai hotel industry is expected to grow by around 10,000 new rooms in 2024, according to Jasper Palmqvist, senior director for Asia Pacific at STR Global, a global provider of data, analytics, and marketing for the hospitality industry. 

Most of the new rooms will be in the upper midscale category, followed by the luxury category. Nevertheless, the overall situation will remain challenging this year given rising inflation, higher costs and companies’ cost control.

“In recent months, we have seen midscale hotel room rates return to pre-COVID-19 levels, which took longer than for upper-scale hotels,” Palmqvist said to Prachachat Business.

STR Global said the overall Thai tourism industry is expected to be positive this year, and it is starting to see a more diversified tourist market that is not too dependent on any one market.

It expects the average daily rate (ADR) of hotels in Bangkok to be 18 percent higher than in 2019 and overall occupancy to be only 4 percent lower than in 2019. However, hotels in some areas are recovering to varying degrees. Hotels in Chiang Mai, which used to host a large number of Chinese tourists, only saw a price increase of 5 percent compared to other areas, which can be as high as 20 percent.