Development of Hotel Industry in Selected Asian Countries: Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam

The hotel industry is obviously the basic activity of international tourism. It is very important to the overall economic sector and plays an important role in most countries in providing facilities for the transaction of business, for meeting and conferences, for recreation and entertainment. In that sense hotels are as essential to economies and societies as adequate transport, communication and retail distribution systems for various goods and services. Through their facilities, hotels contribute to the total output of goods and services, which makes up the materials well-being of nations and communities. According to WTO, since 1960s, the world had more than 32 million hotel beds. This total hotel capacity is very unevenly distributed, since developing countries possess less than 10% of this hotel potential. In line with the segmentation of the tourism industry itself, the Asian hotel industry has changed to meet demand. There is now a wider choice of hotels available in more destinations at better price than ever before. Hotel groups are seeking to expand their presence in order to develop market share and distribution, thus lowering unit costs and raising efficiency levels.