Thai tourism subsidy scheme halted due to alleged fraud
December 18, 2020 @ 11:15am
THAILAND's domestic tourism subsidy programme has been temporarily suspended due to fraudulent claims by hotels and members of the public.
The "We Travel Together" subsidy programme was suspended just before the peak holiday season as authorities look into complaints of corruption and bribery linked to the programme.
The programme offers up to 40 per cent in subsidies for hotel rooms and air tickets.
According to a Bloomberg report, Tourism Authority Governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the online platform that allowed people to register for the programme might come back next week at the earliest or after the new year.
He said the travel subsidy programme was successful in boosting the occupancy rates of hotels that were hit by global restrictions on travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said it had helped boost average occupancy rates to 34 per cent in October, up from the single-digit rate in April.
He said the plan to offer an additional one million rooms at subsidised rates to travellers had also been delayed.
Domestic tourists were previously offered five million rooms under the programme that started on July 18.
The Bangkok Post reported that the authorities had detected irregularities in the recent transactions of 514 hotels and stores participating in the programme.
Under suspicion are 108,962 transactions made with 312 hotels and 49,713 transactions made with 200 stores.
Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said Prime Minister Prayuth Chan o Cha acknowledged the incidents and asked the authorities to take legal action against "swindlers".
Prayuth said the government must take decisive legal action, civil or criminal, to set a standard for other government-sponsored projects and prevent these crimes from recurring.
He said hotels and applicants found guilty will face punishment, especially hotels that fabricated bookings.
Phiphat said these hotels might see their licences withdrawn and they might be blacklisted from future government campaigns.
Yuthasak said the most common fraud method was fake bookings, meaning nobody checked in, while other hotels raised room prices to get more subsidies.
He said some hotels offered to buy e-vouchers worth 600 baht for weekends and 900 baht for weekdays that were normally given to guests automatically upon check-in.
He said bookings skyrocketed after the Tourism Authority relaxed rules to let people book hotels in their home provinces.
Some 54,000 rooms were booked a day, up from 14,000 to 20,000 rooms previously.
The postponement of the addition of one million rooms to the travel subsidy programme have led to travellers delaying their bookings as they wait for the subsidies to start again.