Al Meroz, Thailand's First Halal Hotel Sees Booming Business

By Mohd Haikal Mohd Isa BANGKOK, April 3 (Bernama) -- Business at Al Meroz Hotel, Thailand's first full-fledged four-star halal hotel, is booming as the number of Muslim travellers to the country increases. Its Managing Director and General Manager Sanya Saengboon said the 242-room hotel, which has obtained certification from Middle Eastern and Thailand's Islamic authorites, had received an overwhelming response. "Our occupancy rate now is at 94 per cent. It is already too high and I don't know what to do anymore (on the unprecedented response)," he told Bernama in an interview here recently. To accommodate the overwhelming demand, he said the hotel, which features mosque architecture complete with a minaret, had already started planning for expansion to add another 150 rooms. The expansion plan was done one month after the hotel, located in Bangkok's suburb of Ramkhamhaeng, was officially launched in February this year after undergoing more than a year of trial operations. The hotel will add another annex building at year-end, bringing the total number of rooms to close to 500, each equipped with prayer mats, Al-Quran and qiblah. It also has a prayer hall, ablution facility, three restaurants, a ballroom, gymnasium and swimming pool, with different times for men and women. According to Sanya, who is a Muslim, despite being a full-fledged halal hotel, Al Meroz received an equal mix of Muslim and non-Muslim guests, which showed that the non-Muslims do not have any reservations about staying in a halal-status hotel. "Since opening our doors, we have received many customers from Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, China, as well as countries in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas," he said. Besides that, the hotel also caters to local Muslim tourists especially from the southern part of the country and communities living in Ramkhamhaeng, one of the earliest and largest Muslim settlements in Bangkok. Sanya said the Tourism Authority of Thailand saw opportunities in the halal tourism market and started concerted efforts to attract Muslim tourists from all over the world to the Southeast Asian country. "There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and this represents a huge opportunity for the country," he said, adding that efforts to attract Muslim tourists had paid dividends to Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist country. Thailand has witnessed a surge in Muslim holidaymakers and visitors in recent years. He said this initiative went beyond tourism opportunities as the halal chain encompassed other industries which Thailand could capitalise on. Recapping the idea to build Thailand's first halal hotel, Sanya said it was the brainchild of its President and Chief Executive Officer, Rausak Mulsap, who saw endless opportunities in the halal industry. Spurred by a dream of owning a halal hotel in Thailand, Rausak began the construction of Al Meroz Hotel three years ago with an investment of more than one billion baht (about US$28.4 million), and the rest, as they say, is history. -- BERNAMA