Saijai Sooksai kills time by arranging and rearranging T-shirts imprinted with Ferrari and Ralph Lauren logos at her street side stall in Bangkok’s main tourist district. She has little else to do as Thailand’s record floods deter visitors.
“Business is really bad as tourists from Europe and the Middle East have almost all vanished,” said Saijai, who has run a stall on Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road near the Nana area for more than a decade. “I should be easily getting 10,000 baht ($326) a day this time of year, but now I earn only a couple of hundred some days not even enough to cover my rent.”
While central Bangkok has avoided flooding so far, hotels and office buildings have erected walls of sandbags to protect against waters that have killed more than 500 people nationwide.
The threat has also deterred tourists, forcing Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. to cut flights, hitting reservations at Shangri-La Asia Ltd. hotels and contributing to the central bank cutting its growth forecast.
“The leisure business has disappeared for the time being,” Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Officer John Slosar said on Nov. 4 at an airline association meeting in Seoul. “If you have an option to go, probably you won’t because nobody can quite tell what you’ll get when you get there.”
The airline has cut one of its five daily services to Bangkok, and is only filling about 50 percent of seats on its remaining flights, he said. Normally, the flights would be around 80 percent full, he said. Disruptions may not last long, he said.
Sukhumvit Still Dry
The flood waters haven’t directly affected Bangkok’s main tourist-shopping hub of Sukhumvit and Rachaprasong or the Silom business district. Other popular Thai holiday destinations such as the beach resorts of Phuket and Koh Samui have also avoided flooding.
“You see here, there isn’t even a drop of floodwater,” said Saijai, 54, the Sukhumvit stall owner. “The media have painted an exaggerated picture of the floods to the world.”
The floods have spread across 64 of Thailand’s 77 provinces over the past three months, shuttering 10,000 factories. Bangkok supermarkets have also run short of necessities, such as rice, instant noodles, eggs and bottled water, because of hoarding and supply-chain disruptions.
Cancellations at Bangkok hotels have accelerated in the past week as concerns about flooding prompt customers to alter plans for meetings, weddings, events and holidays, said Prakit Chinamourphong, president of the Thai Hotels Association, which represents about 765 of the nation’s 4,000 hotels.
Occupancy Rates Slide
Occupancy rates in Bangkok fell to about 60 percent in October from as much as 75 percent a year earlier, he said. The level may drop to 70 percent in November, from as much as 85 percent in previous years, he said.
“I’m worried that no one can guarantee floods will not enter inner Bangkok,” he said. The government has bolstered levees and built a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) wall of sandbags to hold back the floodwaters in the capital.
Occupancy levels began declining on Oct. 23 and that was followed by a decrease in average room rates, said STR Global, an industry researcher. The Bank of Thailand on Oct. 28 slashed its economic growth forecast for this year to 2.6 percent from 4.1 percent.
The floods may cut domestic tourism revenue by at least 10 billion baht, said Piyaman Tejapaibul, chairwoman of the Tourism Council of Thailand. The council has yet to estimate the impact to revenue from overseas tourists, worth about 600 billion baht annually, she said.
Tourism accounts for about 7 percent of Thailand’s gross domestic product, according to government data.
Shangri La
Yesterday, the bar and lobby lounge at the Shangri La Hotel, Bangkok, which sits on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya, were almost deserted, with only one family dining in an area that seats more than 100. Sandbags have been erected outside the main doors and by side entrances, and the hotel has water pumps on standby in the event the river spills over its banks at high tide.
Occupancy levels are less than half the expected 76 percent rate, primarily because of a drop in conference and business bookings, said spokeswoman Rashana Pimolsindh. The hotel is also posting twice-daily updates about water levels on its website and Facebook page, she said.
There has also been a dip in bookings at the Swissotel Nai Lert Park, near the Central Chidlom shopping mall, said General Manager Torsten Pinter. The property hasn’t been affected by flooding, he said.
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