Spotlight on Thailand: Hotel News from the Land of Smiles

Training hotel staff for the international stage

Fruit carving class at Dusit Thani College in Bangkok.

BANGKOK, THAILAND—When the rector of Dusit Thani College, one of Thailand’s leading culinary and hotel schools is asked about admission standards, she echoes the view of Canadian hoteliers. Certainly academic standards are a part of the mix, but, says Veera Pardpattanapanich, “if you don’t have the service mindset, this is not the school for you.

“You have to get up early, sleep late and smile all day long.  This has to come from your heart. You have to be happy when you service people.  That’s why we base admission on an examination and a personal interview.”

To enter the college, students must write the country’s Central Entrance Examination, and have English and mathematics as prerequisite subjects.

The college of 2,000 students is known for its international programs.

“Quality-wise, after our students complete their courses they are very well accepted in the industry.”  Culinary kitchen and restaurant management is the most popular course, says Pardpattanapanich, with over half the students enrolled in this program.

But while Dusit Thani College has much in common with its Canadian counterparts, there are a number of differences.  For one thing, there is a dress code — students wear navy suits unless they are in their chef whites. 

And the courses include the intricate fruit carving Thailand is known for, plus courses in flower arranging.

The hotel training program is hands on, as students must log 1,000 hours of industry experience.  Some of the students work in the U.S. or Europe for a year as part of their program, and graduates end up all over the world, including New Zealand, Australia, the U.K., France, Italy, Canada, America and Asia.

Dusit Thani attracts some foreign students, but Pardpattanapanich would like to see more of them.  Programs such as International Management, Hotels and Kitchen and Restaurant Management are in English, but the college also offers five programs in Thai.

Veera Pardpattanapanich.

Pardpattanapanich is also interested in exchange programs where students study for one semester overseas.  One cook is working with Johnson & Wales in the U.S. in a course organized by a culinary school in Singapore.

Certification is also important.  “In Thailand, we didn’t have a place to certify chefs.  Now the national food and beverage examinations are held at Dusit Thani,” she adds.  The certification is recognized by the embassy, paving the way for visas to be issued for chefs to go to other countries.

Pardpattanapanich would welcome people from Canada who want to take courses in Thai cooking.  “We can tailor make a program, say Thai desserts or Thai fruit and vegetable carving.”

Dusit Thani students compete internationally. This year the Thai Chefs Association and the Ministry of Labour organized regional competitions in Thailand, and Singapore also hosts a major competition.

Learn to cook or become a rice farmer at Mandarin Oriental

One of the pools at the five-star Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi in northern Thailand.

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND—Learn to cook Thai food from the hotel chef, make some local crafts, relax with a massage in a replica of the Mandalay Palace in Myanmar, or take a course in rice paddy farming at the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi on the outskirts of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

“The most important thing about the hotel is its character.  If you can create your own character, that is the first step,” says Chaleenuch Visith, director of public relations for the five-star hotel.

The rice farming is one indication of the hotel’s character.  “Thai people earned our living rice farming. We’ll teach you how to do rice planting in the rice field.  You can put on farmers’ clothes and boots,” Visith explains.

“People who come from other countries on the other side of the world love our villas, love the rice  paddy field.  We have a rice paddy on purpose, to recreate golden days in the past.”

They even have a water buffalo on the premises.

Typically customers come from the U.S., the U.K., Hong Kong and Singapore and stay for three to five days.  They are generally individual travellers rather than groups.

“They are not the young — they are mostly well-to-do middle aged couples and families,” Visith says.

While the hotel has only been open for two years, the restaurant on the premises has been a prominent dining spot for 30 years.  Prince Charles and Princess Diana ate there once.  When the previous owner put the restaurant and its 30-acre property up for sale, the current owner, a wealthy Chiang Mai car dealer, jumped at the opportunity.

Over dinner one night, he asked his friends what he should do with it.  The friends teased him, saying, “We need a small resort so when we come here, we have a place to stay.”
As the meal progressed the ideas flowed.  The resort should be totally different from anything that currently exists, so when people see it, they will recognize it right away, they said.

One of the friends was a young conceptual designer, whom the owner knew from his antique-buying days.  He proposed a resort that looked like an ancient walled city.
That’s why the resort was built to recreate a city from the old days — even though everything except the restaurant is new.

The clacking sound golf carts or horses and buggies make when they drive over the wooden bridge to the resort entrance today is no accident.  In the old days, they didn’t have doorbells, so the clacking noise would warn the occupants that someone was approaching.

The ancient city had a shopping village—while the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi has 20 shops and a Mediterranean and a Chinese restaurant, in addition to the original restaurant, which serves Thai food.

A building designed to look like an old city hall is actually a banquet hall that can accommodate up to 350 guests for dinner, with space for a torchlit cocktail party outside on the  lawn.

Chaleenuch Visith.

There are two types of  accommodations.  Visith noted that guests tend to choose what they see as exotic.  Asian guests are intrigued by the colonial suite section, consisting of 54 units in five connected buildings.  U.S. and European visitors are more likely to choose the 69 villa units built like traditional Thai houses.

“Wherever the owner goes, no matter how expensive his accommodation, it normally has a small bathroom and he hates it,” says Visith.

“That’s why everywhere you go in this resort you get a large bathroom.  In some of the colonial units, the bathroom is bigger than the bedroom.”

The spa at the Mandarin Dhara Dhevi is a 3,100 square metre replica of Myanmar’s famous Mandalay Palace, and includes 18 treatment suites.

Says Visith, “When I’m here, I don’t feel like I am working.”

Suanthip Vana helps guests get back in touch with nature

Left, a path leads to a lookout at Suanthip Vana Resort near Chiang Rai, Thailand.

CHIANG RAI, THAILAND—In the lush, hilly area not far from Chiang Rai, Thailand sits a resort built 12 years ago to provide a place for guests to get back to nature.

Thanapat Chankaew, front office manager for the resort.

During the summer and before the end of October, the clientele are mainly Thais, but starting in November, the French, Americans and Europeans arrive.

“They come for nature.  It’s easy to relax,” says Thanapat Chankaew, front office manager for the resort.

Activities include free bicycles, a sauna, tours of tea and coffee plantations, trips to the Myanmar border, cooking classes, pottery classes, umbrella painting and last but not least, trips to the nearby Karen hill tribe village of Ban Hin Lad Nai.

At Baan Hin Lad Nai, the 87 residents earn a living farming, particularly growing Ausump, a tasty local tea. The tea is dried using manual labour, where the frying pan stands on the fire, The villages use an ancient tool to press the tea.

The villagers also still live much the way they used to, dying cloth using colours made from plants and their seeds, and weaving it.

A guest room in a villa at Suanthip Vana, near Chiang Rai, Thailand.

Back at Suanthip Vana, an evening meal consists of dining Lanna style, seated on the floor, with shoes off,  and the food served on a lazy-Susan.

This Khan Toke Dinner usually includes Nam Prik Ong (Northern Tomato and Chilli Paste), Chor Pak-Kard (Northern Vegetable Soup with Pork) and Kaow Soi Kai (northern Chicken Curry Noodles), all eaten with the sticky rice of Northern Thai cuisine.

Daytime menus include spring rolls, papaya salad, and chicken curry.

Drying tea leaves using traditional methods in Baan Hin Lad Nai, a Karen hill tribe village near Suanthip Vana in Northern Thailand.