The Thai Hotels Association (THA) says the Tourism and Sports Ministry should select participating hotels for its "Thai Teaw Thai Plus" subsidy scheme based on their revenue and should allow them to adopt dynamic pricing to lift the sector and help small businesses.

At a public-private tourism committee meeting earlier this week, the ministry and companies discussed the outline of the stimulus, which is scheduled to launch in October.

A major agenda item was to finalise the details of the domestic tourism co-payment scheme, which is similar to previous phases launched to help the tourism industry post-pandemic.

Thienprasit Chaiyapatranun, president of THA, said the ministry raised concerns about the potential for excessive rate hikes during this scheme, as such cases were reported during the previous phase.

He noted that hotels typically adopt dynamic pricing, which adjusts the price up or down based on actual demand and seasonality.

If the hotel booking system for the upcoming scheme allows dynamic pricing instead of fixed rates, it would help hotels greatly, said Mr Thienprasit.

Tourism and Sports Minister Surasak Phancharoenworakul said the Finance Ministry may exclude five-star hotels from this scheme to increase bookings for small and medium-sized properties.

Mr Thienprasit said such treatment would be unfair because owning five-star hotels doesn't necessarily mean the company is a large enterprise, while those who upgrade their properties to five-star hotels in some cases only want to improve their services.

Instead, the THA suggests using the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion (Osmep)'s criteria, which categorise business size based on annual revenue and numbers of employees.

According to Osmep, midsized enterprises in the service sector employ 30-100 people and earn 50-300 million baht per year, while small enterprises employ 30 people or less and earn less than 50 million baht per year.

The THA said the co-payment scheme should include only licensed properties to create fair competition and to offer an incentive for operators to properly register their businesses.

Thai Teaw Thai Plus is expected to be submitted for cabinet approval later this month, with a programme launch in October.