Thailand's Riverside Properties Viable For Biz Travelers

While Bangkok's leading hotels are scattered throughout the city, few can compete with the Oriental, Shangri-La and Royal Orchid Sheraton for location along the banks of the Chao Phraya River, Thailand's busiest waterway.

In a corner of Bangkok away from the city's crowds and crowded boulevards, longboats, barges and motorboats carry goods and passengers in a never-ending pageant that unfolds daily outside guest room windows. It's a neighborhood more quiet and peaceful than most and long the choice of many upscale business travelers and incentive planners, and improvements at those hotels have made it even more so.

The Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel & Towers in August completed a $14.5 million renovation project that redesigned facilities, added a meeting room and spa and improved guest rooms. The guest rooms were upgraded and a new group check-in lobby was added. The 16 second-story Riverview function rooms have been refurbished and the Riverview ballroom, accommodating up to 500 delegates, opened early this year. The hotel's Mandara Spa has made the property even more competitive.

"The spa will reposition our hotel as the "city resort spa and conference center," said Benjawan Sudkhikam, spokesman for the Royal Orchid Sheraton. Meetings play an important role in the hotel's market mix. It has hosted local, national, regional and international meetings, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, as well as corporate meetings for Hewlett- Packard, IBM and other companies. Like many other hotels in Thailand, the Royal Orchid is noted for its service standards and received the highest guest satisfaction index score for 1999 among all Starwood properties worldwide.

Meanwhile, just a short river taxi ride downstream, the Shangri-La Hotel has upgraded its 174-room Krung Thep Wing in a $2 million project that replaced all soft goods and gave the guest rooms a new look. Next year it also will upgrade the rest of the guest rooms and add a spa.

The Shangri-La also plans to refurbish the Krung Thep meeting rooms in 2002 to complete the wing's upgrade. The Krung Thep wing houses the 792-room hotel's most upscale accommodations, which are popular with incentive groups.

Meetings and incentives, in fact, made up 27 percent of the hotel's total business in 2000, according to Agnes Pacis, the hotel's director of marketing. "Meetings are regional and international in scope. Telecommunications and consumer products dominate the meeting scene," she said.

Meanwhile, insurance, consumer product, pharmaceutical and software companies supply most of the incentive business. Pacis expects the MCI market to play an increasingly important role in Bangkok. "This segment is increasing in visibility. More and more companies are realizing the importance of recognizing top achievers through incentive programs that are in place in their respective companies. Bangkok's appeal has gotten stronger with the increase in concern for value and affordability," said Shangri-La's Pacis.

In addition to the upgrade of the Krung Thep wing, another improvement for the Shangri-La—one that it was not directly responsible for—was the opening of the terminus of the Sky Train on a site adjacent the hotel. The Sky Train, Bangkok's new elevated public transportation system, which began operations in December 1999, has been a boon to business travelers eager to reach appointments on time. Whereas not too long ago Bangkok's traffic-clogged land arteries made staying in riverside hotels inconvenient—if not logistically impossible—for many business travelers this is no longer the case. A trip from the Shangri-La across Bangkok, which once took two hours or more, now can be accomplished in 20 minutes.

"The new Sky Train system has improved overall accessibility in a city known to be congested. Being the only riverside hotel with a Sky Train station on our doorstep means only positive things for us," Pacis said. "The issue of proximity to certain places in the city has taken a back seat. One can now enjoy staying in the more peaceful and tranquil riverside, without the concern of difficulty in getting to the other parts of the city."

Meanwhile, the third—and oldest—major riverside hotel, The Oriental Bangkok, celebrated its 125th anniversary this year with the completion of a $29 million renovation. In 2000, the top six floors of the hotel's main building, known as the River Wing, were torn out and replaced with brand-new rooms. Likewise the rest of the rooms on the lower floors were given the same treatment last summer.

Meanwhile, the Oriental has joined some of the top hotels and resorts in Indochina in a marketing alliance to promote the region and allow high-end customers the ease of purchasing special multi-destination packages. Known as Legends of Indochina, the program includes The Oriental in Bangkok, Metropole in Hanoi, Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh, Majestic in Saigon, Raffles in Singapore and Strand in Rangoon. Business travelers who have work in several countries in the region, or who would like to do a little sightseeing before or after their work is complete, will benefit from the alliance.