Thai and other Asean hoteliers plan to set up their own booking website, Hotel Asean, to attract global tourists and fill rooms in legal, small and medium-sized hotels.
Thai Hotels Association president Supawan Tanomkiatipum said the association will work with the Asean Hotel and Restaurant Association in creating a central website for hotel bookings in the region, and aimed to have 1,600-2,000 hotels under its network.
Room bookings would be directed to members of the two associations. It was expected up to 200 hotels from each country would sign up. It was planned to launch the website early next year.
The website would provide a platform for small hotels to strengthen their marketing and be more competitive, while reducing their dependency on a few large foreign online travel agents, which charged high commissions of 25-30%.
Ms Supawan said the new website would charge only 10%.
Only legally registered hotels would be allowed to participate. This would boost travellers' confidence and indirectly help reduce the operations of illegal hotels prevalent in several countries in the region, particularly Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
She said Singapore had few illegal hotels as the island country had stiff regulations punishing illegal operators.