Thailand’s independent hotel operators are facing mounting pressure as online travel agencies charging commissions of 15% to 30% tighten control over room pricing and customer acquisition. 

Manmeet Thakralbutra, Founder and CEO of Arawana Group, said smaller hotel operators are increasingly squeezed between global chains with larger loyalty ecosystems and OTAs that influence pricing across Thailand’s hospitality market.

He said Arawana focuses on protecting margins by reducing operational costs before bookings occur rather than depending solely on higher room rates.

“The way we approach margins is that we look at it even before the booking happens,” he said.

According to Thakralbutra, the company uses customer behaviour data to guide renovations and operational planning, helping reduce housekeeping time, maintenance complexity, and renovation spending.

The discussion also highlighted how AI pricing systems and automation tools are becoming more widely available to independent hotels, narrowing the technology advantage traditionally held by international chains.

“What we do is basically agility,” Thakralbutra said.

He said smaller operators are often able to react faster to market changes because decisions move through fewer management layers. The interview also examined how hotels are using automation beyond pricing systems. According to Thakralbutra, Arawana uses automated pre-check-in systems and backend analytics tools to reduce repetitive administrative work and improve workflow efficiency.

“That allows us to take a lot of the boring paperwork at the check-in process out the window,” he said.

The discussion also focused on one of Arawana’s higher-risk expansion decisions during the pandemic. The company took over a three-building property in North Pattaya and repositioned it under four separate hotel brands targeting different customer segments rather than operating the site under a single concept.

By dividing the property into multiple pricing categories, Arawana reduced renovation costs and gained greater pricing flexibility across the compound.

“That’s become one of our best-performing assets,” Thakralbutra said.

He said independent hotels that fail to improve operational efficiency and pricing flexibility may struggle to defend margins as OTA commissions and chain-scale competition intensify across Thailand’s hotel market.