Royal Orchid Holidays, Forty Years StrongPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
Forty years strong and growing stronger, that’s Thai Airways Royal Orchid Holidays’ travel department. Forty years of serving millions of travellers. How did all this happen?
Officially Royal Orchid Holidays was launched in 1970, that’s 40 years ago, but technically ROH was founded in 1967. It came about through necessity. In December that year, Thai Airways began the first international flight to Bali. It was truly a newsworthy occasion. THAI was reaching out to the world by opening up new routes never even imagined before. Whoever gave thought to international flights to a little known destination like Bali that hardly had a landing strip large enough to handle jet airliners. Even more important, there was no travel infrastructure––hotels, local transportation (except for horse and carriage but the horses would never make it from the airport) and no travel guides or brochures telling people where to go and what to see. A Mexican artist-writer, José Miguel Covarrubias, had written an excellent book on Bali, “Island of Bali”, but it dealt mainly with culture and history.
Getting there for THAI was not a real concern. The airline’s fleet of Caravelle SE-210s could land and take off almost anywhere and for Bali the landing Caravelles popped out a parachute from the tail to slow down the aircraft. It was an ingenuous method that worked.
The real question was what would THAI passengers do once they arrived? What about accommodation? Back in those days it was not a simple task like booking a hotel room in advance. It was nearly impossible. You had to write to a hotel, if you could find an address, and then never be certain you had accommodation when you arrived. It was decided by the management that if the route were to be successful THAI would have to offer an inclusive package tour flying from Bangkok to Bali. No tour operators anyplace in the world were offering packages to Bali. THAI had to send in a staff and make arrangements for their passengers—hotels, local transportation, sightseeing and all necessities. It turned out to be very successful. THAI set up a seven-day tour including flight and six nights at the Bali Beach hotel for the price of US$298.
As a travel correspondent for Thai airways the management had sent me ahead to write six travel destination stories on Bali and these went to news media around the world. After word got around and the news spread, THAI had no problem filling their aircraft. They now had to maintain a travel staff in Bali to handle the flow of tourists.
Bali was so overwhelmingly successful that THAI now decided to spread its wings to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. This certainly had to be one of the wilder travel destination schemes ever dreamed up. We have to picture Kathmandu, at the time, 1968. The Kingdom of Nepal had been tucked away and kept in isolation for centuries and only in the 1960s did it begin to emerge out of the past. It wasn’t until as late as 1956 that the first road connecting Kathmandu with India was completed. Prior to this, supplies had to be carried on mule back or by rope line over the mountains. Now Thai Airways decided to fly there.
Again, as travel correspondent for THAI, I was sent ahead to do travel stories telling the world something about this incredible destination. Travelling overland from Calcutta, it took me five days to reach Kathmandu via the Raja Path, the highest road in the world. At the end, it was truly like finding Shangri-La.
And again, THAI had to establish a travel infrastructure. Fortunately there were more choices in Kathmandu than in Bali. After doing a comprehensive study and assigning competent travel agents, THAI offered an eight-day tour of Nepal for $276.00. It was no small wonder that THAI put Kathmandu on the tourist map.
Nepal became so successful that THAI began to offer regular tours. By 1970 they were selling 2,000 package tours to seven destinations and it was then that Royal Orchid Holidays was born. It fell under the reign of a young, energetic Thai lady with incredible foresight, Sunisa Shundikun, who remained director until her retirement years later. By 1979 ROH was offering 50 holiday packages to 15 countries and they made 42,000 sales.
By 2009, the 40th year of their operation, ROH was offering 100 destinations in 37 countries and selling 170,000 packages. In Thailand alone, in the ROH Discover Thailand Programme, some 452 tours were offered including a choice of over 300 hotels.
Why the success? THAI does not operate the in-country tours themselves. In each country they go to the best ground-handling tour operators. Each country differs. If, after a trial period, those agents who didn’t handle operations to THAI’s requirements, ROH searched around for another operator.
Director Sunisa used not only dependable and reliable tour operators, she wanted flexibility of the programe in which they could combine different elements of tours—with infinite variety.
ROH developed a huge purchasing power with hotels. Their number one priority, of course, was reliability, one of the prime factors for their success. The information that ROH disseminated, in the form of brochures and booklets, had to be accurate. Travel writers had to know their stuff, and not by copying information from travel guides and government tourist office handouts. Robert Dannhorn, who had been the regional editor of Fodor Guides for Asia, was called in to prepare the brochures. He went to every single destination and did his homework before he ever took up his pen. The selling point for ROH became Good Value, its trademark.
Royal Orchid Holidays now has a new director, Prin Yooprasert, a man with vast experience and, like Sunisa, with remarkable insight. He was appointed as new Director for ROH from 1 December 2009. He had previously been Director of North Asia for the past three years. His duties were looking after sales/administration for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan where THAI has more than 90 flights weekly.
His previous positions included: General manager for Malaysia; Sales manager for Thailand; General manager for Bali, Indonesia; General Manager, New York, Toronto; Sales manager
for Washington D.C.; and, assistant to manager in Zurich, Switzerland.
ROH couldn’t asked for a better qualified director—and one who has a vision QUESTIONS & ANSWERSQ: Dear Mr. Stephens, I hope you don't mind asking a question that has been bothering me. In Ayutthaya why are some of the images of the Buddha swathed with a saffron colored textile while others are not? It was the same with the chedis.
Again, thank you for your help. Sincerely, Marlyn, Dumaguette, Philippines
A: Dear Marlyn,
I could reply to your question by saying with the hundreds of thousands of Buddha imagines around Thailand there probably is not enough cloth in all the land to cover them all. But, that’s not the reason. Robes placed on images of Buddha are donated by devotees who are seeking merit, asking for blessings or want to give thanks. The devotee selects the image he or she wants robed and gives a donation for purchasing the cloth to the monks at that temple. Usually chedis are robed by families who are descendants. I hope this answers your question. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
