Thailand venues roll out supportive pricing to expedite MICE recovery

Thailand’s convention centres are striving to meet tight-budgeted planners in the middle as the country begins her business events recovery.

The meetings industry was allowed to resume on June 15.

Loy Joon How, general manager at the IMPACT Exhibition and Convention Centre, said his team was taking a “give and take approach” with clients.

“In all our discussions, a give and take approach is key to helping us establish good customer relations and be as supportive as we can in this early stage of recovery,” said Loy.

Loy: give-and-take approach with clients

“As a venue provider that organises our entire business operations around customers’ needs, we do understand the concerns of our customers regarding increased costs due to precautionary measures… As such, we are flexible…in working closely with our customers to see how we can best manage and package these costs effectively.”

The Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Centre and Chiang Mai International Convention and Exhibition Centre stated they are also taking a similar approach, pricing for social distancing needs on a case-by-case basis.

Others have released special venue packages. The Royal Cliff Hotel Group, which includes the Pattaya Exhibition and Convention Hall, is offering a Stay 6 Pay 5 deal, and a new Protection-C package which accommodates new safety protocols.

Meanwhile in the capital, Centara Grand & Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld has offered to match room prices with free credit for F&B or spa offerings with its Stronger Together deal.

Bhakchuda: created new spaces to deal with capacity issues

Bhakchuda Phonjarit, assistant general manager at The Berkeley Hotel Pratunam, told TTGmice that meeting package prices have not gone up “to compensate for lost capacity in the new normal”.

“(Instead), we have launched special meeting packages for our new meeting rooms, to capture the lower budget market with competitive prices and to attract a wider range of clients.”

Anticipating that the “new normal” would spell severely compromised capacity, the Berkeley Hotel Pratunam has transformed its free spaces into additional meeting space during the lockdown.

“We built new meeting rooms to increase our capacity and be ready before the government announced the Phase 3 relief measures which allowed meetings and events (to resume),” shared Bhakchuda.

The move is also intended to support the Thai domestic business events market’s more limited budgets while inbound travel is temporarily dampened.

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