Transcript of the above video:

Something a lot of people have been bringing up with me this past week or so has been this notion of a Dual Hotel pricing "mandate". What are we talking about here? Well, let's go to the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is title: Hoteliers deride Government proposal for dual pricing. Quoting directly: "Hoteliers have expressed concerns about the Government's plan to set dual pricing for foreign tourists and locals, saying the move is "impractical" and demanding the administration roll out effective promotions to spur tourism sentiment in an effort to increase room rates." Quoting further: "The idea of dual pricing is impractical as room rates shift dynamically based on Market conditions, said Marisa Sukosol Nunbhakdi, President of the Thai Hotels Association. Hotels in each tier also use different strategies to set prices, she said." Then later on in the article, and I urge those who are watching this video to go read that article, there is a lot of information in there but quoting further: "Phiphat Rathchakitprakarn, the Tourism and Sports Minister said the Government did not give a mandatory order about the issue but wants to encourage hotels to shift room rates based on the marketing. The Administration wants to avoid over pricing, support cash flow and maintain the service standards of hotels." Well look, if you want to support cash flow just let Hotel set the rates they want to set and get the people into the hotels to pay the money that they are willing to pay. I don't understand how you are going to support cash flow by ”mandating” a higher price than perhaps the market would otherwise like to bear, I don't really understand that. 

On the point of dual pricing in kind of a general context, you will see a lot out there on the internet especially regarding Thailand about dual pricing for example at National Parks here in Thailand and there is even some talk sometimes about dual pricing in a private property, a private business context; it is not the purpose of this video. I am kind of ambivalent about those other things. I can kind of understand the argument in the sort of Thai National Parks context. Thai nationals, folks who live in Thailand, the vast majority of folks who live in Thailand live in a much lower standard of living than folks who are from the West and they have a much lower amount of capital on which to spend in a giving year and there is consideration accorded to Thai Nationals versus foreign Nationals with respect to things like going to a National Park and the admission price associated therewith. Honestly, the sort of adopted Thai that I am, I definitely understand that argument. I know there are some that are going to burn me in the comments over that but whatever, I don't really care. I get it.  In a private context, where sometimes you'll hear of private companies, the foreigners will get charged more than the Thais. Well although I understand the ire that may be raised in the hearts of the foreigners that feel that that is inequitable or unfair but it is what it is. Private businesses can opt to charge what they want to charge. It just is what it is. 

This notion that the Government, I first read this article when this was proposed by Mr. Phiphat, the Tourism and Sports Minister it was first kind of presented as if it was going to be a mandate; they were going to mandate hotels have a different pricing structure for foreigners as opposed to for locals. My immediate thought was from a quote from Ronald Reagan where he said, “The worst words in English language you can ever hear are, We are from the Government and we are here to help." I am not saying that about all government in general. There are definitely caveats to that but the minute I heard that I just thought "wow this is just not, I don't think people are fully thinking this through". I do understand, everybody I think is trying their best but I think sometimes Government folks fail to remember they are in the Government and Government is a very different animal from private enterprise. Quite honestly I can imagine that the hoteliers here in Thailand, the last thing they want is to price out anyone from a room that they would be willing to rent to someone especially after 2 years of effectively being shut down. So with respect to this notion of this dual pricing "mandate" on hotels, yeah I can't think of a worst time for this for Thailand and I really hope nothing like this comes to pass. 

 I do understand and we are doing a video contemporaneously with this one discussing the notion of Thailand as a premium jurisdiction. In my opinion, Thailand is a premium jurisdiction, there's no doubt about that but there is no particular reason in my mind to price anyone out. If there is a segment of the hospitality industry here in Thailand that's willing to cater to a certain segment of the Tourism Market, why go out of our way to keep that money from coming in? Why do that? I don't really understand that and again I don't think sometimes folks who work in the Government really sit down and kind of reflect on the fact that Government doesn't work the way private industry, works private enterprise works. Government is Government and yes they can set policies and they want to see certain things be a certain way and that is all well and good but in private enterprise especially when you have had two years of not being in business, it's really just not something that is going to be an overwhelmingly popular idea to create a policy of pricing possible customers out of the market.