Internet “No Season” Super Sale Needed for Phuket Hotel Rooms

High season this year has taken a serious beating with the island hotels taking anywhere from 20-40% occupancy hits off figures from November up to April. Forward booking indications when speaking to the international operators and hotel manager's point to a fairly dire outlook for post Songkran up until the end of 2009. With over 40,000 accommodation rooms ranging from guest houses up to luxury hotels, it ends up being a lot of empty beds.
In February of this year leading global management company ACCOR conducted an online Super Sale for just three days, targeting the period April to July. Reservations had to be done online and prepaid. ACCOR represents a wide range of brands including Novotel, IBIS and Mercure all with hotels in Phuket. The results were astounding with major levels of business recorded in key destinations. Discounts were significant but at the end of the day the positive cash flow from preselling, incremental revenue and limit in risk to long term rate strategies and wholesaler complaints were positive.
Perhaps here on the island Phuket.com,HotelTravel.com or AsiaRoooms.com could work with the existing hotels in their inventory and provide a tactical promotion aimed at providing much needed revenue that can save jobs, businesses and the service industry which is taking a hit from the global recession. This type of overlay on a destination campaign can work, given the you have international chains, marketing organizations and tour operators all with a wider agenda then just the island and not focusing specifically on Phuket itself.
Currently there are a number of stand alone campaigns by hotels or organizations but not cohesive direction or coordination. With the size and critical mass of hotels, certainly tourism needs its own voice and prioritization in the islands development.