Golf course hotel planned by Siam Motors
The recently-opened Siam Country Club Pattaya Waterside golf course is set to get a 60 to 120-room hotel built on the site within the next two years, according to its owners, the Siam Motors Group.
The chairman of Siam Motors Group, which was the first company in Thailand to import Japanese cars and heavy machinery, said they were prepared to invest as much as 400 million baht in constructing the hotel.
The appeal of the hotel will be obvious, attracting committed golfers who will be virtually on-site and therefore able to tee-off in the morning after an overnight stay. Travel time to the course will be minimal.
The Siam Country Club Pattaya Waterside golf course was built at a cost of 1.32 billion baht. It is the third course under the Siam Country Club umbrella, and brought the total investment of Siam Motors Group in the three venues to around 4 billion baht.
Waterside is an 18-hole golf course and sits alongside the 18-hole old Siam Country Club course and the 27-hole Siam Country Club Plantation course.
The move by Siam Motors Group into the golf course development industry took place 43 years ago. The company still owns around 3,800 rai in Chonburi province which it expects to develop into another golf course and housing projects, although details are yet to be released.
The new golf course is expected to attract around 1,000 golfers a week and the company believes it will break even in about seven years. Over time, Siam Motors Group expects the golf courses will generate around 600 million baht a year in revenue.
With 64 tee times a day on weekends and 50 per day during the week, and a tee time limited to a maximum of three golfers, the Siam Country Club courses are able to offer plenty of scope for all levels of golfer.
Thailand is one of the most popular golf destinations in Asia, with around 250 golf courses nationwide. Of these, some 22 are located within the Chonburi and Rayong areas. Siam Motors claims its first two golf courses are running at full capacity, catering to almost 114,000 golfers a year. Of these, around 80 percent are expats, many of them Japanese.
The golfing segment of the economy earns around 10.5 billion baht in tourism revenue, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). This makes it the fourth-largest revenue earner in terms of the so-called ‘high-end segments’ of the tourist economy, behind eco-tourism, weddings and honeymoons, and medical tourism.
The golfing market within Thailand is expected to grow substantially in coming years as playing the game becomes ever more popular among middle class Thais, especially families.
