Yes, you have to pay for it
Just back from Patong. Is this place ever going to join the rest of the world in the trend towards drinking less but better? From wealthy Thai to refuge European, it appears that the majority of people drawn to the hospitality business in Patong are hostile to hospitality. The cheapest, nastiest wines you can imagine seem to find their way to this quarter as if by some perverse law of physics.
You can talk to these proprietors for hours without the subject of their guests’ happiness coming up even once. Can you make me a special price? Can you give it to me on consignment? Can you give me a corkscrew? Can you give me something a little back without my boss knowing (wink, wink)? I try to have compassion for someone wealthy enough to buy a hotel but who then says they have run out of cash to buy a 600 baht corkscrew, and I go away unsure whether to laugh, feel embarrassed for them or call myself naive for thinking it could be any other way.
Given the choice between (a) happiness of the guest or (b) a wine refrigerator and free ice bucket, which do you think sways the average proprietor here when putting together their wine list? Economists should flock to Patong to study how it can be that both the wealthiest and the most financially desperate proprietors exhibit the same actions.
Stinginess is false economy because it is not the customers who are cheap in Patong. An obsession with cost just denies the house revenue from lost sales because Patong is packed full of people prepared to pay more for quality if they could only find it. Places like THE9thFLOOR that deliver excellence in fine wine and that care about their guests’ satisfaction are packed full each night and taking down a guest check average other places could only dream of.
It’s an interesting time we are living in, here, right now. The present economic slowdown and recession is forcing many people to reevaluate their business models. Some are exiting the business while others are expanding. People are even reevaluating their personal life priorities and how they live their lives. The forward thinking among us keep pushing themselves up the quality ladder and focus on guest satisfaction rather than cost control because they realize, in the long run, the only costs that matter are those that don’t add value to the guest.
In the mean time, anybody who takes pride in their reputation, strives for excellence in wine quality, cares about their guests, and genuinely respects their staff ? they are still able to have it all to themselves. The few who ‘get it’ are quietly going about cementing their reputations as leaders in Patong while everyone else is probably already trying to find out where they can get Hebei Hengshui Laobaigan on consignment.