SCB holds “SCB IEP Boot Camp: Hospitality Survival” offering survival tips for the tourism industry

Monday 28 September 2020 14:15

With tourism-related businesses in crisis, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) is continuously seeking to support its customers, as can be seen by SCB recently teaming with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to organize an “SCB IEP Boot Camp: Hospitality Survival” course for hotel and hospitality segment business operators. To be held nationwide, the three-day course will offer survival tactics and business tips tailored to the digital era, which can be applied to real businesses to instantly boost sales. The course also shares practical business improvements to help reduce costs while promoting sustainable growth. Scheduled for piloting with hotel operators in the three southern provinces of Phuket, Krabi, and Phang Nga which contain major tourist spots most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the course will advise participants to focus more on new business segments, such as local tourists, in order to sustain their businesses while awaiting the return of foreign tourists when things return to normal.

Speaking about the new project, Mrs. Pikun Srimahunt, Senior Executive Vice President, SCB Chief SME Banking noted that despite signs of some activities by local tourists, the recovery of tourism in Thailand still remains minimal and restricted to areas in or near Bangkok. This means that most of the operators and workers in the hotel and tourism sector have yet to overcome the crisis. Realizing the magnitude of the problem and with no sign of an end to the deteriorating debt service ability plaguing the hotel sector, SCB is exploring options to help support the sector, such as increasing sales through both physical and digital channels for increased bookings. These efforts aim to assist operators in generating revenues to help sustain their businesses during the crisis. However, the Bank believes that hotels can increase their sales effectiveness and reach more customers if they can develop new perspectives and practical knowledge for dealing with this challenging moment and understand how to adapt to the new digital era. SCB has therefore teamed up with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to launch an “SCB IEP Boot Camp: Hospitality Survival” program, an intensive course to help hotel operators overcome the current tourism crisis. The course offers new marketing approaches, enabling operators to connect with and earn favor from consumers and close deals more quickly. Amid travel bans imposed worldwide, local tourists have demonstrated strong potential and should serve as a new target group. The course also touches upon business management techniques to help lean businesses and reduce unnecessary expenses in the long term.

“SCB IEP Boot Camp: Hospitality Survival” aims to support the hotel businesses of all participants in successfully overcoming the crisis, allowing them to apply what they have learned to the businesses they run. The course focuses on how to tap new opportunities from local tourists, who may have different preferences and lifestyles than foreign tourists. Operators will be able to identify new perspectives that can be adopted for offering unique experiences based on the outstanding features of each hotel, including necessary business skills for the digital era that will help generate more sales and revenues. Hotel owners need access to practical knowledge to be ready for services, and we are confident that this training course will help ignite the power of hotel operators to move forward with more broadened perspectives.

Mrs. Napasorn Kakai,Director,Tourism Authoritiy Of Thailand, Phuket office noted that Phuket’s economy has been driven almost 100% by tourism. As an example, Phuket has some 1,800 hotels with over 100,000 rooms, but at present only 125 hotels remain open, with partial bookings of only 8,400 rooms. Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Phuket has relied mainly on tourists registering for the government’s tourism stimulus packages and long holiday tourism, which help distribute income to locals. Most of the surviving operators have adopted technology to help their businesses, with digital technology playing an increasing role in operating their businesses. We are grateful that SCB has developed the SCB IEP Boot Camp: Hospitality Survival training course to help hotel and tourism business operators take advantage of digital technology effectively, readying them to move forward. The Special Tourist Visa (STV) to be launched soon for foreign tourists with purchasing power and catering to long term staycations under public health restrictions will provide a good opportunity to revive Thailand’s tourism sector. Thai people and business operators should be confident in our public health measures helping us overcome this crisis together. We strongly believe that the situation will definitely return to normal within the next few years.

The first session of the SCB IEP Boot Camp: Hospitality Survival training course is scheduled for 23-25 September 2020. The syllabus will focus on searching for new opportunities for hotels using marketing data analytics, strategies to boost bookings with on-line marketing, how to survive with strong branding, living and leaning for survival, reopening hotels with impacts, how to use data to create storytelling content, and cost management using new energy and environment technology for hotel businesses. The course will focus on workshops, allowing participants to brainstorm ideas, learn, take action, and sell through on-line channels catering to hotels. SCB will help promote access to reach more customers via www.scbshopdeal.com for more direct bookings.

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SCB has teamed up with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to launch an “SCB IEP Boot camp: Hospitality Survival” course nationwide offering survival strategies for business operators in the hotel and hospitality segment. The three-day intensive class will provide information on doing business in the digital era, including leaning businesses for cost reduction and sustainable growth. The course will be piloted for hotel operators in the three southern provinces of Phuket, Krabi, and Phang Nga. To mark the recent launch of this intensive boot camp, Mrs. Pikun Srimahunt, Senior Executive Vice President, SCB Chief SME Banking Officer has joined together with Mrs. Napasorn Kakai,Director,Tourism Authoritiy Of Thailand, Phuket office in Phuket.