Marriott International is expecting to grow as the Thai government aims to attract more upscale visitors, with the majority of the company's 36 new properties in the pipeline over the next four years in the luxury segment.
Chief executive Anthony Capuano said its luxury projects align with the government plan to market Thailand as a premium destination, attracting quality travellers.
"Many of our focus areas in Thailand match well with the tourism and sports minister's desire to focus on the upscale market," Mr Capuano said during a five-day visit last week to meet the minister, government officials and business partners.
Thailand was the first destination in Asia-Pacific Mr Capuano and other Marriott executives paid a visit. This was his first trip back to Thailand since he was appointed chief executive in February 2021.
In addition to creating more destinations for guests, the 36 new hotels should equate to 7,000 new jobs, he said.
At present, Marriott employs 9,000 people working at 47 hotels across the country.
Marriott added some 2,000 positions in the last couple of months.
During the pandemic, Marriott had certain services in its hotels outsourced, said Jakob Helgen, the company's area vice-president for Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar.
"We saw an opportunity to discontinue or suspend outsourced services and bring permanent team members in to fill those roles," Mr Helgen said. "The majority of the 2,000 newly recruited employees were former staff that we got back in touch with."
Rajeev Menon, president for Asia-Pacific excluding Greater China, said the labour shortage in Thailand was not as severe as some of the developed countries.
"During the crisis, many workers in Thailand moved back to their hometowns to do farming or work on a family business," said Mr Menon.
"Now, as the market has started to open up, we are bringing them back on full salary."
He said a recovery has happened in both the business and leisure segments. The latter was driven by big source markets such as Singapore and India.
Mr Capuano said there were several factors that continued to drive demand during the economic headwinds.
Marriott continued to see pockets of pent-up demand from the lockdown period, he said.
"The savings rate of households in many markets around the world are historically at a strong level," said Mr Capuano.
Even prior to the pandemic, consumers cared more about experiences such as spas and other activities other than paying for a room. It appears the pandemic accelerated that trend, he said.
Another trend that emerged during the pandemic and should continue is the blending of travel and work, said Mr Capuano.
"One of the advantages of the hotel business is the opportunity to re-price and re-market its products every day, so we watch in real-time the pace and speed with which demand recovers as vaccines are distributed and borders are opened," he said.
