Nearly 4,900 hotels in seven popular Thai tourist destinations are operating illegally without necessary permits, a study says.
A survey conducted by SurapongTecharuvichit, president of the Thai Hotels Association, found 4,876 unregistered hotels with a total of 168,929 rooms listed on the Agoda hotel booking website.
This compares to just 772 hotels on the site which are legally registered.
Surapong surveyed all hotels in Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Surat Thani, Hua Hin and Cha-am.
“Many hotels are operating illegally, maybe due to their inability to get a license because of tough conditions, or maybe they just prefer not to be registered,” he said.
Legally registered hotels usually have higher operating costs, Surapong said.
With so many non-registered properties, average room rates at hotels in Thailand are lower than in other countries in the region, he explained.
The Thai Hotels Association has called for better enforcement of the hotel investment law and tax rate parity for registered and unregistered properties.
The Thai government last week revised regulations requiring smaller hotels to be properly licensed which is due to take effect in the next 90 days.
Regional authorities would then give hoteliers six months to complete the registration process.
Owners of hotels found to be still operating illegally after this period could be jailed for one year and fined up to THB10,000 for every day of the violation.
