With hotels reporting over 111 million baht in losses from the collapse of the German tour company FTI Group, operators will seek assistance from the German Embassy in Thailand via coordination with the Tourism and Sports Ministry.
FTI, the third-largest tour operator in Europe, filed for insolvency in June, affecting tourists and operators in many countries, including Thailand.
The Thai Hotels Association (THA) and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will submit a letter to the Tourism and Sports Ministry to coordinate with the German Embassy in Thailand, hoping to discuss a possible method to claim compensation.
Siripakorn Cheawsamoot, TAT deputy governor for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, said only 250,000 travellers in Germany who purchased tour packages could expect reimbursement via the German Travel Security Fund, according to a recent report from Germany.
However, there has been no progress on compensating affected agencies outside Germany, said Mr Siripakorn.
In Thailand, most tourists who booked through FTI had already completed their trips, but hotels were unable to claim this expense from the company, said THA president Thienprasit Chaiyapatranun.
Some Thai hotels even accumulated a loss of 3-4 million baht from this single case.
Mr Thienprasit said that since the collapse occurred two months ago, hotels did not receive new bookings from FTI, which helped to stop the build up of new debts.
One of FTI's partnered agencies in Thailand has contacted THA and asked affected hotels to submit booking invoices to them, in order to calculate reimbursement.
During the pandemic, Thai hotels also had to bear a large amount of unpaid bookings from a top Russian operator, but they were fully compensated years later by that company.
As the global economy remains an issue, hotels still have to depend on wholesale tour companies by providing them with the credit system, in order to gain customer volume, as online bookings alone are insufficient to fill up their rooms.
From now, hotels might consider reducing the credit amount or credit duration for tour operators to minimise their own risks.
Chiravadee Khunsub, TAT executive director for Europe, said that since FTI's financial instability has shown up at the early stage, some hotels quickly shifted to a pre-paid system before receiving guests from FTI.
Unfortunately, many of them could not access the information, resulting in suspended payments.
To avoid repeating this with similar cases, TAT's offices in Europe and its marketing representative will provide consultation and verify the credibility of tour agencies for Thai operators if there are requests from hotels.
Ms Chiravadee said the collapse of FTI should not disrupt the European inbound target for Thailand, as tourists can choose other travel companies or booking methods.
As of July 31, European tourists tallied 4 million, and likely to reach the 7 million goal set by TAT.
