PHOTO: Airbnb and other accommodation-share businesses, plus a glut of newly opened hotels rooms across the country, is putting pressure on the traditional hotel model

The Thai Hotels Association has again asked for a meeting with the Minister of the Interior to discuss the impact of short-term rentals and home sharing services like Airbnb on the domestic hotel business. The Assoication’s president Supawan Tanomkieatipume reminds him Thai law officially doesn’t, technically, allow owners of condos to rent out their units for less than 30 days without a hotel licence.

But he acknowledges that the practice is widespread and almost impossible to police.

“THA has no intention of seeking a ban on these services in Thailand. We just want the government to issue suitable regulations on the operations of these service providers, and enforce related laws to protect customers.”

Supawan acknowledges that the tourist numbers are still reaching almost last year’s levels but says that the both accommodation-sharing services and a surfeit of new hotel rooms available is cutting into his members’ bottom-lines.

His solution would make owners offering short-term rentals and home sharing services be required to register with the Ministry and apply for a business licence, the same as for hotel operators, and display their licence numbers when advertising.

THA also wants to count them in the total number of hotel operators, so the government can design measures to promote hotels based on the actual number of businesses in the market.

“A preliminary survey by THA shows that there are over 21,000 providers of accommodations not listed as hotels scattered around Bangkok and tourist cities. Without knowing the actual number of competitors, hotel entrepreneurs face the risk of room oversupply.”

Statistics published by Airbnb earlier this year showed that home sharing generated more than 33.8 billion baht to property owners and the surrounding communities.

SOURCE: The Nation

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Foreign investment in Thailand has grown by 106% according to the National News Bureau of Thailand, with officials rolling out a number of measures to make foreign investment less complicated. The latest increase is despite a fall in the number of foreign companies approved to carry out business in the Kingdom – down 23% from last year.

Poonpong Naiyanapakorn, deputy director general of the Department of Business Development, cites various ongoing projects for the increase, including services to assist in the exploration of natural resources, mining for petroleum, and various metro projects.

During the first nine months of 2019, the Board of Investment (BOI) processed 1,165 foreign investment projects worth over 314 billion baht, reflecting an 11% increase compared to the previous 12 months.

The Department of Business Development is reported to be improving the application process, simplifying regulations and assisting investors who’ve requested investment promotion from the BOI. While foreign investors who’ve received business promotion still need to apply for foreign business certification within 30 days, they are exempt from having to process a business operations permit.

An information sharing scheme is now in the works that will enable foreign organisations to pay fees online, meaning they should be able to get their foreign business certification in just one day.

SOURCE: National News Bureau of Thailand

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PHOTO: 77jowo.com

You’re only weeks away from receiving a few of those plastic-wrapped and ribboned baskets of unwanted goodies for the silly season – but do you wonder what’s inside most of them?

Now officials are making a list and checking it twice… Officials in Bangkok are out and about checking those prized Christmas and New Year gift baskets to make sure nobody ends up feeling a bit cheated.

The Nation reports that officials from Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health, accompanied by Deputy Bangkok Governor Sophon Pisuthiwong, visited a selection of shops around the capital this week to make sure their Christmas and New Year’s gift baskets are legally compliant.

Sophon says their intention in carrying out the checks is to ensure people don’t end up receiving inferior or even out-of-date products and that retailers are transparent about the cost of items in the baskets. The gist of the suspicions is that retailers put one or two items of value at the top of the basket, pack it full of surplus and out-of-date stock, and then scrunched up paper at the bottom to make it look full.

“The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is committed to protecting consumers against low quality or expired products that some retailers may try to bundle in the gift baskets. Retailers are also required to display the list of each item in the basket along with their prices to let customers know what they are buying and that each of them is priced correctly.”

Deputy Bangkok Governor Sophon also stresses the importance of supplying products with more longevity, saying they must display an expiration or best before date and that fruit and vegetable baskets should not be prepared more than 3 days in advance of sale.

“According to Food Act BE 2522, packages of all food products must display expiration or best before date, or manufacturers will be fined a maximum of 30,000 baht. To apply this law to gift baskets, we require the sellers to put only products that expire after January 31 in the baskets and must allow consumers to return the products until February 29 in case they are not satisfied with product’s quality.”

“As for fruit and vegetable baskets, we advise retailers to prepare the baskets not more than 3 days in advance of the selling date to ensure freshness of the produce.”

Finally, Sophon reminds retailers that gift baskets containing alcohol cannot be displayed in store or even in brochures. He says doing so would contravene Article 30 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act and could lead to an 11,000 baht fine and/or up to six years in prison.

The checking of New Year gift baskets is part of a wider campaign being run by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration in conjunction with 32 department stores and retailers, focusing on price and quality control of the baskets. The campaign also seeks to promote the use of more environmentally-friendly materials, such as leaves and paper instead of the usual foam and plastic.

SOURCE: The Nation

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