Thai Hotels Association president Chanin Donavanik, second left, and Thai Restaurant Association president Pavornwan Koonmongkol, left, lead the move against RS yesterday.

The Thai Hotels Association (THA) will lobby all 3,000 hotel operators, including 600 hotel members, throughout the Kingdom to boycott RS by not playing its songs at their hotels.

More than 500,000 staff working in the hotel industry will be encouraged not to buy or use RS's music products. The move is part of the association's campaign against the music company over its latest collection of copyright fees from hotels that play its songs in their function rooms.

"The latest music-copyright collection made by RS in charging our function rooms is unfair, and what we'll do is not use their products," said THA president Chanin Donavanik.

"Our business is providing function rooms and catering services," said Chanin, adding that the hotels had not had any dealings with the music company in playing its songs in function rooms. Rather, the clients themselves brought and played the songs at their parties and events.

Chanin said the new copyright fee collection would be too expensive for all hotel operators, particularly small and medium hotels that had been heavily affected by the economic downturn. Some had lost more than 20 per cent of their revenues in the first half of the year.

In some southern provinces, such as Songkhla, first-half hotel revenues declined almost 80 per cent. Visitors from Singapore were down 90 per cent, from Japan 10-15 per cent and from China 20 per cent. Major concerns cited by travellers were local security and the appreciation of the baht, as well as Suvarnabhumi Airport itself, which is considered inconvenient for them.

"Hotels are among the few industries that can compete in the international arena. The hotel industry has created employment and contributes huge tax revenues to the country each year. And I don't understand why we've been treated unfairly by the authorities and copyright-holders during this time of difficulty," said Chanin.

He said that while hotels in Thailand had suffered a significant drop in revenues and visitor numbers, due to the economic and political difficulty, rival hotel operators in Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia had enjoyed increased revenues of 10-40 per cent.

Pavornwan Koonmongkol, president of the Thai Restaurant Association, which has about 70,000 members, said the association had been in dispute with holders of music copyrights for almost four years and had tried to find a solution that was fair to all. The current fee seems to be higher for restaurant operators, especially small- and medium-sized establishments.

"Small restaurants with about 20 tables and a small band or karaoke service must pay more than Bt20,000 a year for music copyrights. The charge will be as high as Bt500,000 a year for big restaurants that have 500 tables or more," said Pavornwan.  She said copyright-fee collections for music had become a fixed expense for restaurant operators, who faced a huge decline in revenues amid the economic slow-down.

"We [restaurant operators] are supposed to be recognised by music companies as the promoters of their songs to the public. Our main business is selling food, and we may finally stop those songs being played at our restaurants if we're treated unfairly by music firms over their copyright-fee collection," said Pavornwan.

Sutisak Pasarnkarukarn, managing director of RS subsidiary Thai Copyright Collection, said the company did not understand the boycott of RS products announced by the THA, because the company had been collecting music copyright fees from all hotel function rooms for almost two years now.

"We charge a lump sum of Bt10,000 a year for a hotel with one to three function rooms, Bt15,000 a year for those with four to six function rooms, Bt20,000 a year for seven to 10 function rooms and Bt25,000 a year for 11 function rooms and up," said Sutisak.

He said the company was willing negotiate with the THA for temporary discounts but would not consider any cancellation of copyright collection.

"We think we have the right to collect this charge on behalf of the holders of music copyrights," said Sutisak.

Kwanchai  Rungfapaisarn

The Nation