Earthquake hits Chiang Mai's room rates during Songkran

Despite a robust performance during the Songkran holidays, hotels in Chiang Mai offered lower room rates than last year in a bid to draw last-minute domestic travellers, whose confidence was still shaken by last month's earthquake.

- MOLPASORN SHOWONG

Paisarn Sukjareon, president of the Thai Hotels Association's upper northern chapter, said many hotels were still stunned by the quake that rocked Thai-land and Myanmar last month, lead-ing to a slower last-minute booking rate this year.

However, he said hotels ramped up occupancy rates to 85% from April 12-16, similar to last year.

Mr Paisarn said the difference for the Songkran holiday this year was that most hotels could not raise their room rates by over 800-1,200 baht, as they normally did in years past.

To maintain domestic demand, hotels hiked the rates by only 10% or 200-300 baht per room to acceler-ate bookings among local travellers, he said.