SkyTrain Broadens Bangkok's Lodging Choices

<B>SkyTrain Broadens Bangkok's Lodging Choices</B>

By Fred Gebhart

When the elevated Bangkok transit system known as SkyTrain opened for service in December 1999, what had been one of Asia's most traffic-ridden major business destinations suddenly became one of the easiest to get around, and experts are predicting significant changes in corporate lodging patterns.

The logistical nightmares of 1999 have become a mythical divide that separates old timers from first timers in Bangkok. Cross-town taxi trips that used to take two hours--with luck--now take 20 minutes via the SkyTrain. Business travelers who were stuck sleeping at whichever hotels happened to be within a half-mile of their primary destination now have dozens of choices from which to choose. And travel managers who had to book room nights based solely on location now are free to cut deals all over town, without inconveniencing their travelers.

"This is a wonderful selling tool for us," said Edward Mirza, general manager of the Novotel Siam Square, just outside SkyTrain's main station and transfer point at Siam Square. "It makes it very easy for business travelers to get around, especially in terms of time management. When they say they will be at a place in 10 minutes, they will be there."

For now, SkyTrain has two lines and just under 15 miles of track raised about 40 feet above Bangkok's crowded streets. The $55 million system connects 25 stations, most of them concentrated along Silom and Sukhumvit roads, the city's primary business streets. More than 50 hotels are on the line, as are most international firms and most Thai companies with significant international business. City planners hope to extend the transit network to about 165 miles, with a second elevated rail system (stalled due to financing problems) and a subway scheduled to open in 2003.

"We lost business for years while the station was being constructed right outside the hotel," said Thierry Doulin, general manager of the Siam Inter-Continental. "But with Central Station on our doorstep, we are launching a campaign to position ourselves as the best-located hotel in Bangkok."

Location has made Shangri-La and Inter-Continental instant winners, conceded Samrej Zeepongsekul, public relations director for the Regent Hotel Bangkok, but other properties along SkyTrain routes are pushing hard.

"It will take time to change habits," Zeepongsekul admitted, "but we expect to see some major changes in lodging patterns. With the Ratchadamri Station adjacent to the hotel, we're already seeing more guests doing business in the Silom Road area." Corporate offices along Silom Road are 30 to 45 minutes from the Regent by taxi. The same trip takes three minutes by SkyTrain.

Veteran travel analyst Imtiaz Muqbil, editor of Travel Impact, also is forecasting a massive change in lodging patterns. Hotel sales teams are emphasizing easy SkyTrain access to pitch corporate clients they've never before approached. Returning business travelers are carrying the same message back to corporate travel managers and asking for new property choices.

"Hotel sales and marketing directors will no longer need to focus on attracting corporate business from within a two- to three-kilometer radius of the properties," Muqbil said. "Before SkyTrain opened, traffic congestion made it useless to cast their marketing nets further afield."

Meeting and convention traffic is feeling similar pressure. Part of the push is coming from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, which is urging group organizers to promote SkyTrain connections and spread their room blocks around the city. Hotel sales teams are carrying the same message, which is starting to affect booking patterns.

Before SkyTrain, attendees headed for the Queen Sirikit Convention Centre clustered in a few hotels near the property to minimize the time they spent stuck in traffic. With SkyTrain access, hotels as distant as the Shangri-La are seeing significant off-property meeting and convention traffic for the first time.

"Queen Sirikit Convention Centre is a five-minute taxi ride straight down the road," said Shangri-La marketing director Nancy Giles-Maroney, "but you'd be lucky, very lucky, to make it in an hour from the hotel by taxi.