Thai hotel's 5 cent rooms entice tourists back to Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai's hotels are giving away rooms to recoup some of their 10million annual tourists. Photo / Bhararth Mohan, Unsplash

Hotels in northern Thailand are attempting to entice back international tourists with a real bargain, slashing room rates to one baht a night.

Thai There's not a lot that 1 baht ($0.05) will cover even in rural Thailand.

However, the Harmonize Hotel is giving bargain hunters a reason to return to the mountainous city, offering a heavy discount on all of its 77 rooms.

Usual rates for the 4-star stay list at between ฿500 and ฿1000 or up to $44 a night.

As the package also includes ฿300 spending money for guests to use in the restaurant, the hotel is practically paying for your holiday.

The lowball price is part of a wider campaign being led by the Thai Tourism Authority which is trying to revive the flagging visitor counts for Northern Thailand.

The Harmonize Hotel, Chiang Mai, is offering rooms for 1 Thai baht. Photo / Supplied, Booking.com

Chiang Mai, famous for mountains and elephant sanctuaries accounted for over a quarter of Thailand's 40 million international arrivals in 2019. Post pandemic the tourism recovery has been largely focused on 'Sandboxes' in the south of the country, including Phuket.

Originally, Thailand allowed tourists to return quarantine free from July 2021, providing they remained in controlled 'sandbox' resorts for five nights.

Last month Thailand dropped these requirements including hotel quarantine, Thai vaccine pass and mandatory travel insurance cover for Covid-19 related claims.

Despite this, visitors to regional Thailand is still lagging behind beaches and cities like Bangkok.

Unvaccinated tourists still need to complete a supervised Covid-19 test 72 hours prior to departure. The Thai embassy says that random checks would be carried out to make sure that travellers arriving by air are complying with the relaxed rules.

Harmonize Hotel owner, Phunut Thanalaopanich, said he hopes that the bargain room rates will spur arrivals during the approaching rainy season.

The hotel might be offering the most extreme savings but is just the first of 45 hotels who have signed up to the scheme. Other properties are offering up to 70 per cent off their normal rates. You'll have to be quick though - bookings remain limited to 200 a day and must be used by the end of October.

Saraswadee Asasapphakit, the Thai Tourism Authorities northern office director says the scheme aims to boost hotel occupancy to over 50 per cent.

Thailand recorded just 3.12 million foreign arrivals in the first half of this year, with key markets in China and Russia yet to return.

Mountainous Chiang Mai in northern Thailand is famous for elephant sanctuaries. Photo / Craig McKay, Unsplash

Thailand on a budget

With 22.5 Thai Baht to the NZ dollar, a single ฿ doesn't go far even in northern Thailand.

Here's what a baht will buy you:

1/80 of a pint.

1/40 a visit to the Wat Chedi Luang, Chiang Mai's famous royal Buddhist stupa

1/2500 a day (35 seconds) at the Chiang Mai elephant sanctuary

1/3000 of a return flight from Phuket to Chiang Mai.

A room in the Harmonize Hotel.