SEAHIS 2018 Kicks-off with Strong, Relevant Panel Discussions

Bangkok (Thailand) – May 14, 2018 (travelindex.com) – South East Asia Hotel Investors Summit (SEAHIS) 2018 kicked-off today in Bangkok with top-level speakers from hotel developers and owners in relevant panels discussions and one-on-one talks. SEAHIS is an owner-driven event focused on hotel real estate investors, developers and franchisees. It’s aim is to bethe best hotel investment conference, not the biggest.

SEAHIS was launched in 2017 as a brand new type of hotel investor summit for a region covering ASEAN, the eastern Indian Ocean, Australia and New Zealand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It aims specifically to meet the needs of hotel and serviced apartment owners, investors and developers; and of those who provide services to them.

SEAHIS 2018 host over 80 speakers – around a third of the people in the room are on the platform or leading a round table at some point, giving this event the feel of a senior management seminar rather than a mass conference

The panel on OTAs, moderated by Simon Allison, Chairman and CEO of HOFTEL was probably the most attended and sparked a heated debated. The question asked was: Have owners left it too late to claw back control over their economics from the OTAs, and do they need to?

David Hamblin, VP of Asia Pacific for Lodging Partner Services, Expedia represented the OTAs while Norbert Vas, VP Business Development, Archipelago International talked for the hoteliers and Suchad Chiaranussati, Founder & CEO, SC Capital Partners Group for hotel investors. Norbert Vas strongly advocated for the hotels to take back control from the OTAs by promoting all direct booking channels including on social media, while David Hamblin argued that the commissions paid to OTAs are marketing costs for hotels and , in some cases, even lower then costs associated with direct booking efforts.

SEAHIS offers numerous options for networking with speakers, sponsors and delegates and the evening networking reception at The Westin Grande Sukhumvit, allowed all participants to prepared for a second day of the South East Asia Hotel Investors Summit (SEAHIS) 2018.

For more information and full programme, please visit: www.seahis.com