Phuket tourism operators are urging the Interior Ministry to extend the tourism clinic programme, which offers consultations to help illegal accommodation operators comply with the law, as well as extend the expired ministerial regulation that allows other building types to register as hotels while awaiting the new Hotel Act.
Deputy Interior Minister Worasit Liangprasit last week visited Phuket and held meetings with operators, pledging to regulate the hotel business and crack down on nominees.
The Interior Ministry's consultation and problem-solving clinic for hotel and entertainment venues was established earlier to provide guidelines and consultations for unregistered businesses, with the registration period ending on July 10.
Sarayuth Mallam, president of the Phuket Tourist Association, said that although a number of unlicensed operators want to properly register their businesses, some are reluctant to enrol in the clinic programme, fearing arrest and being forced to close.
Mr Sarayuth said the government should assure operators that they will not be immediately prosecuted, but instead offer them both a consultation and a timeframe to adjust their properties to comply with the law.
Since tourist safety should be highly prioritised, compromising on some safety features should not be allowed, such as insufficient fire extinguishers or fire exits, or modified structures that exceed legal limits and engineering standards.
"We don't want to see casualties in hotel fires in Phuket like in previous cases, which stemmed from insufficient safety facilities. Such incidents greatly impacted the province's tourism image," said Mr Sarayuth, adding that roughly 70% of hotels in Phuket remain illegal.
Some operators have already improved their facilities to comply with the law, but still face challenges in obtaining building certification under the Building Control Act, which is mandatory for obtaining a hotel licence.
There have been cases in which small and medium-sized operators were asked to pay bribes to obtain building certification, so the government should help address this type of corruption as well, he said.
He added that some operators who intentionally refuse to register should be strictly prosecuted, especially if their hotels are operated through nominees or they offer daily rentals in condos or housing projects, which is against the law.
Many of them are foreigners who buy condo units or houses in the same project in bulk, turning them into daily lodgings to compete with hotel operators.
"In this case, they should all be arrested, as their revenue did not benefit any locals," said Mr Sarayuth.
Chinnawat Udomniyom, president of the Phuket Boutique Accommodation Consortium, said the government should also extend the Interior Ministry's regulation, which temporarily allows other types of buildings that do not meet the definition of a hotel under the Hotel Act, but opened before Aug 19, 2016, to register for licences for several more years, after it expired last August.
He said this regulation can help solve short-term obstacles while operators await the new act to regulate hotel businesses in Thailand, which is under parliamentary consideration.
