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| The "Town in Heaven" |
Founded in
Bangkok in 1948, Dusit Thani Public Company Limited trades on the SET stock
exchange. It is currently priced attractively at THB64 per share. The company’s
vision is to make Dusit Thani one of the world’s most valued hospitality brands
across the luxury hotel segment. It is well on its way with 22 hotel properties
in Thailand and overseas. Dusit Thani Bangkok was the company’s first hotel and
is still the flagship hotel. The second property acquired became Dusit Thani
Pattaya, their first resort hotel. In 1995, Dusit Thani acquired their first
overseas hotel in Manila. Dusit has also opened some hotels in India and China,
with several more in the pipeline. Their strategic plan is to build from its
strong base in Thailand to focus expansion on Asia, especially emerging regions
of hospitality in the Middle-East, India, China and Africa. More specifically
their future projects include:
·
Expansion in UAE, Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain, Qatar and Oman;
·
Dusit recently signed a
10-project joint venture with a Chinese partner to build hotels in Shanghai,
Kunming, Chengdu, Chongqing and Hainan;
·
Domestically, the company is
launching a hotel in Khao Yai National Park, a world heritage site, in 2013;
·
The company will open a hotel in
Nairobi at the end of 2013, making it the first Asian brand to have a hotel in
an African city.
All together, Dusit’s plan is to have 50
properties worldwide by 2018. They are determined to grow as a niche
international player specializing in the luxury segment of the market, whilst
maintaining its deep Thai roots resulting from its 60 year history. In
preparation for the ASEAN economic community’s commencement in 2015, its
education division founded Dusit Thani College in 1993. It has links with
leading hospitality educator Lyceum of the Philippines University and Le Cordon
Bleu (world’s largest distinguished culinary arts institute). The Lyceum of the
Philippines University, with 4,000 students enrolled yearly, gives Dusit access
to a low-cost hospitality talent pool with crucial English language skills. The
opening of the AEC will enable this talent pool to circulate throughout the ten
countries. In addition, 2007 saw the opening of Le Cordon Bleu Dusit Culinary
School, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, the company’s
sales organization is highly effective with dedicated China, Japan, Russia, and
Korea sales teams and an additional 30 sales networks worldwide. In Q1 2013,
Dusit International achieved revenue of THB1.42 billion, up 27% from last year,
for a net profit of THB162 million, up by 138%.
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| Dusit Thani Dubai |
One of the dangers for Dusit Thani will
be the many established developed market hotel chains focusing on Asia for
expansion. Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide has 153 pipeline projects in
Asia, while InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) plans to double its Southeast
Asian presence. Accor is also planning for 45% of its 104,000 new rooms to be
located in the Asia-Pacific region. The Marriott also has 58 hotels under
development in order to add 16,000 new rooms to the Asia-Pacific region, whilst
Shangri-La is planning to open 13 new hotels in Asia just this year. Meanwhile,
major Asian hotel chains are intensifying efforts to become major global hotel
operators. I think Dusit Thani have the right strategy of focusing on emerging
hospitality hotspots. Others such as Taj Hotels of India are seeking to export
its brand to developed markets where they already have Taj Boston and The
Pierre in New York. Conversely, Jin Jiang Hotels (China’s largest hotel
operator) is planning cautiously by first entering JVs with international
operators to manage some of their domestic properties in order to learn from
them before venturing abroad.
So what is
behind all these expansion plans? Rapid economic growth across the Asian region
has fuelled a burgeoning middle-class that provides higher demand and higher
requirements for quality travel services. More recently, occupancy rates for
rooms in Asia have been around 70% with revenue per available room down
slightly by 2% to US$91. Yet by 2015, Asia-Pacific should overtake the Americas
to become the world’s second largest tourism region (measured by arrivals),
after Europe. Within Asia, the major destinations are China, Hong Kong,
Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. Growth in hospitality services demand should
be around 6.4% annually until 2020, despite the global financial crisis,
compared with forecast growth rates of 3.8% for the Americas and 3.1% for
Europe. In addition, Asian countries are competing harder for tourist cash with
new attractions. Shanghai announced in 2009 a Disneyland, whilst Singapore
opened two resorts – Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa in 2010. Similarly,
Macau continues to open more casinos to keep ahead of Las Vegas and Thailand
develops tourist traps like Asiatique in Bangkok and the Sanctuary of Truth in
Pattaya. Yet, whilst these countries are competing with each other, these new
attractions all complement each other by attracting tourists to the region who
may then go on to neighbouring countries. Currently there are 2.15 million
rooms in Asia-Pacific in 976 hotels, with 172,000 rooms under construction.|
Most Popular Cities by Arrivals
|
|
|
City
|
Visitors (millions)
|
|
Bangkok
|
15.98
|
|
London
|
15.96
|
|
Paris
|
13.92
|
|
Singapore
|
11.75
|
|
New York City
|
11.52
|
|
Istanbul
|
10.37
|
|
Dubai
|
9.89
|
|
Kuala Lumpur
|
9.2
|
|
Hong Kong
|
8.72
|
|
Barcelona
|
8.41
|
|
Seoul
|
8.19
|
|
Milan
|
6.83
|
|
Rome
|
6.71
|
|
Shanghai
|
6.5
|
|
Amsterdam
|
6.35
|
|
Tokyo
|
5.8
|
|
Vienna
|
5.37
|
|
Taipei
|
5.19
|
|
Riyadh
|
5.05
|
|
Most Popular Tourist Countries
|
||
|
Country
|
Number of Visitors (millions)
|
Amount spent per person (USD)
|
|
France
|
83
|
645.8
|
|
USA
|
67
|
1883.6
|
|
China
|
57.7
|
866.6
|
|
Spain
|
57.7
|
968.8
|
|
Italy
|
46.4
|
888
|
|
Turkey
|
35.7
|
719.9
|
|
Germany
|
30.4
|
1253.3
|
|
United Kingdom
|
29.3
|
1249.1
|
|
Malaysia
|
26
|
808
|
|
Russia
|
25.7
|
435.8
|
|
Austria
|
24.2
|
781
|
|
Ukraine
|
24
|
208.7
|
|
Hong Kong
|
23.8
|
1348.7
|
|
Mexico
|
23.4
|
542
|
|
Thailand
|
22.4
|
1343.8
|
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