“One Price, All Destinations” Campaign Launched By SME Tourism Operators

All of the participants involved in the “One Price, All Destinations” campaign expressed confidence that the pricing strategy in conjunction with the continuing sales promotion packages offered through social networking, which facilitates two-way communication with the target audience, constitute the ideal solution that not only brings about an end to the price wars but also generates a positive image of the Thai tourism industry in the longer term. Participants are also confident that with the introduction of the 2010 “One Price, All Destinations” campaign, total sales revenue will increase by more than 50% within the end of the year.

Ms. Lily Udomkunnatum, Managing Director of Burasari Group (operator of Burasari Resort Patong, Phuket and Shanghai Mansion, Yaowarat, Bangkok), as head and representative of the organizer for the various activities being undertaken under the “One Price, All Destinations” campaign, revealed that “The launch of this event is part of the first collaboration of the boutique hotel groups in 2008 when the “One Price in Boutique Style” campaign was first introduced and which turned out to be a successful campaign. However, these two campaigns differ quite significantly in detail, especially in the aspect that this campaign covers a wider range of campaign members and thus caters to more needs and interests of tourists by including spas, restaurants, car rental companies, and more. The “One Price, All Destinations” campaign pursues a pro-active marketing strategy that stimulates customer purchases in the short run. It also pre-empts the tendency to adopt competitive pricing in a market crisis. In addition, the campaign aims to encourage long term cooperation."

“For this marketing activity, we prioritize communication with our target group through online media as it does not cost much coupled with the fact that the online community expands quite extensively and rapidly. The communication behavior of consumers today is focused on online social networking. This represents approximately two thirds of the overall internet users in the world. Social networking lies at the heart of the internet world and has become the centre of communication in today's society. As part of our marketing activity, we have adopted the pricing strategy as the key message, offering a special rate of 2,200 baht per night  from the standard rates of 5,000-20,000 baht. We are also promoting online reservations for consumers to book through the website - www.oneprice.shanghaimansion.com - from 24 June 2010 until 30 November 2010. We also have in place a team to organize various activities to encourage customer involvement - including the drawing of prizes at the press conference for Facebook's campaign fans (www.facebook.com/oneprice), games and a photographic competition. These activities aim to stimulate the market through the adoption of a two-way communication approach,” said Ms. Lily.

She also added that, “We believe that the One Price, All Destinations campaign will create a cash flow of at least 20 million baht in the first three months and also create higher revenues for campaign members of at least 50 per cent by the end of the year. In the long term, we are open for boutique hotels and related tourism businesses to join the campaign so that they can enhance the competency of their sales and services. Our goal is to have hotels from every province on board and we trust that this market stimulation will strengthen our tourism industry sustainably.”

Mrs. Juthaporn Rerngronasa, Deputy Governor for International Marketing for Europe, Africa, Middle East and Americas discussedTAT's support for the “One Price, All Destinations” campaign. “This is an interesting collaboration among private tourism operators as it helps to speed up the recovery of the Thai tourism industry, especially within the boutique hotels group and related businesses. This initiative extends the reach of the recovery plan for the Thai tourism industry, covering more sectors, especially the boutique hotels group. These have a different image and brand identity to traditional Thai hotels and provide a distinctive appeal in the products and services they offer to the high-end market. The integration of various business groups under this campaign offers value-added benefits to one another. Furthermore, the market stimulation activities are in line with TAT's market stimulation policy for the domestic tourism industry. This includes plans to engage private sector tourism operators in the development of domestic tour packages offered at an affordable price, which in turn is in line with the government’s tax deduction measures for individual travellers, as well as market stimulation through online media channels which TAT is currently actively pursuing by adopting a “single message” approach through blogs, e-talk and the various other forms of social networking including Facebook and YouTube. All of these approaches support the “One Price, All Destinations” campaign most effectively. We are therefore confident that this collaboration will be another effective means to achieve an early recovery for the Thai tourism industry.”