Hotels in Bangkok want the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to postpone its plan to charge hotels for waste water treatment, claiming that most of them are not financially ready after having just recovered from three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Marisa Sukosol Nunbhakdi, president of the Thai Hotels Association.

The BMA plans to charge 8 baht per cubic metre of waste water discharged into the drainage system from commercial buildings, including hotels, which use more than 2,000 cubic metres of water per month. The BMA estimates that 80% of the tap water consumed by commercial buildings are discharged as waste into the drainage system.

Marisa said that hotels are now shouldering increasing operational costs, such as for electricity, cooking gas, wages, bank interest rates and land taxes.

Since many large and medium-sized hotels have their own water treatment plants, she said that they should be exempt from treatment charges, adding that she doubts the BMA’s eight treatment facilities are capable of treating all the waste water released into the drainage system from commercial buildings and households in the capital.

Whether the water treatment fees are 4 baht or 8 baht, depending on the category of the commercial building, Marisa said they will not be ready to pay the fees from the end of this year, as planned by the BMA.