Hotels in Thailand: Thai hotel chain will begin rebranding

One of the largest hotel chains in Thailand, Amari Hotels and Resorts, plans to invest about a half billion baht (about $ 50 million) in the rebranding of its own hotels. In the nearest future, Amari Hotels and Resorts tends to begin expansion of the Asian hotel market. The new brand promises to be one of the basic elements for attraction of the attention of clients and potential investors not only to the hotels chain in Thailand, but also to the hotels, that the company will open abroad.

The first hotel, which will be the result of the image shift program of the company, will be represented in Thailand by Amari. It will be a new hotel in Hua Hin, construction of which the company tends to conclude in 2011. “According to the plans of the company, the new hotel will have 230 rooms,” - Bangkok Post reports.

In addition to changing the hotels image in Thailand and abroad, Amari Hotels and Resorts will hold a large-scale restructuring within the company. Amari will have new units for the development, personnel, and crisis management. Restructuring in Amari Hotels and Resorts also implies the involvement of professional managers who had previously worked in the leading hotel corporations of the world. Among the new members of the top managers team of Amari Hotels and Resorts will be specialists, who had previously worked in senior positions in such well-known companies like Ritz Carlton.

Amari Company aims to operate 11 hotels in Thailand and 51 hotels in Asian countries by 2018. The “resurrection” action for the company will begin with two hotels under management of Amari - Amari Watergate Hotel in Bangkok and Amari Coral Beach in Phuket, the reconstruction of which is scheduled to begin in late 2009.

In addition to hotels in Thailand, Amari Hotels and Resorts intends to promote its brand in such countries as India, China, Indonesia and Vietnam. In the long term Amari expects to enter the markets of Australia and the Middle East.

A new team of professionals, which will be created by Amari Hotels and Resorts as a result of restructuring, will work on updating the company's image at the Thai market as well as the foreign one. Within the bounds of works on promoting the brand on such key markets as Britain and the Middle East, the company intends to engage the local agencies for public relations in an official capacity.