Dusit International believes China is a market with a lot of untapped potential and local media is reporting that the hotel company has major expansion plans for the country. Dusit hopes to have 50 hotels operating or in the pipeline throughout the country between now and the end of the decade.
There are four hotels operating under the Dusit brand in China currently. Dusit’s chief operating officer, Lim Boon Kwee, told the Bangkok Post that another 20 sites are already in the pipeline including Dusit Thani Hot Springs and Wellness Resort Fuzhou which is scheduled to open in 2019. The property is set to become one of the first internationally-branded hot spring resorts in the region and will have a total of 250 rooms.
Chinese visitors surpassed the Japanese as the top foreign customers at Dusit’s Thailand properties in 2015. The company operates 12 hotels in Thailand along with 15 others worldwide. Figures from the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) noted that six million Chinese tourists arrived in Thailand last year.
“The Chinese travel all around the world to learn about different cultures and different food. They love Thai hospitality and Thai food,” Lim told the newspaper. “We have to enhance our brand in China and find the unique selling points to make our brand known by the Chinese.”
It was also noted that domestic tourism in China is very strong and Lim pointed out that about 90 percent of the guests staying at Dusit’s Chinese properties are local customers. Dusit opened its first hotel in China in 2013 and now operates three hotels in Changzhou along with one in Jiangsu. The company has 11 hotels under the Dusit Thani brand, two Dusit Devarana and three dusitD2 properties and one Dusit Princess hotels in the pipeline for China with the company looking to increase this total to 50 in the coming years.
Image: Dusit Devarana Hot Springs & Spa in Conghua, one of Dusit’s existing properties in China.