Naiharn Beach - one of four Phuket beaches where you'll find an Accor hotel.

Accor hotels throughout Thailand – including Phuket – are now offering guests “cash back” incentives during their stays. The “cash back” credits can be used on services within the hotel such as restaurants, bars or even on treatments in the spa.

“Accor is coordinating this campaign to help give tourism a helping hand,” said Oswald Pichler – Accor’s Vice President of Operations for Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. “As the country regains stability [after the political violence in Bangkok], tourists will be looking to take advantage of deals for travel to locations such as … Phuket.

“With hotels and resorts in all key city and leisure locations, the Accor network when combined with these ‘cash back’ incentives provides a very strong proposition.”

Until September 30, guests staying at participating Pullman, MGallery, Grand Mercure, Novotel, Mercure, All Seasons or ibis hotels will receive:

• B500 at any Pullman, MGallery and Novotel per room per night to spend in the hotel
• B250 at any Grand Mercure and Mercure per room per night to spend in the hotel
• B150 at any ibis and all seasons per room per night to spend in the hotels

Ibis Patong Hotel

Accor manages six hotels on Phuket. They are the Novotel Phuket Resort in Patong; the Novotel Phuket Beach Resort Panwa on Cape Panwa; the All Seasons Naiharn; the Mercure Patong; the Ibis Patong and the Ibis Kata.

For more on these hotels, go here.

Phang Nga's beaches are not as powdery and white as Phuket's - but nor are they as crowded.

Tourism may be on the floor at the moment in Phuket (and just about anywhere else in the world, for that matter), but the big hotel chains clearly take a long view and are seizing on this time as a good opportunity to enlarge their portfolios.

French chain Accor, which already has five hotels in Phuket – two Novotels, a Mercure, an All Seasons and an Ibis, with another Ibis due to open in December this year – has announced that it has signed an agreement to manage one more, on Nai Thon Beach, a quiet stretch on sand in the northwest of the island. This will be Phuket’s first Pullman resort. Pullman is Accor’s new top-of-the range brand, named after the luxury rail coaches that used to ply Europe’s railways.

The full name of the resort will be the Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithorn Beach. The “Arcadia” bit of the name comes from the fact that the resort is being built by the people who own the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort & Spa on Karon Beach, further to the south. The Pullman is scheduled to open toward the end of 2011.

Also due to open about the same time is the 79-villa Ritz Carlton Reserve resort on the beach near Bor Dan in Phang Nga, just a quick hop across the bridge from Phuket. Despite the name, this is not a place for saving endangered species. Instead, “Reserve” is used more in the way it is used in reference to extra-special Champagne or cognac; it is apparently aimed at the top 2 percent of Ritz Carlton’s already very well-healed clientèle.

Come to think of it, some of these may well be endangered in the current financial climate.

The Reserve will rise on a site originally controlled by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Investments. Kingdom had planned a hotel there, to be managed by Singapore’s Raffles group. But with Kingdom continuing to experience hefty drops in profit (83 percent in the second quarter of this year, for example), the site now belongs to a group of private investors and Raffles are out.

With high land prices and much of the best beachfront land in Phuket already taken up, hotel developers and management companies have increasingly been looking to Phang Nga. The first burst of resort development was in the Khao Lak area close to a decade ago, but more recently eyes have turned towards beaches such as Natai and Bor Dan, closer to Phuket.

The beaches are not as white and powdery as those of Phuket but they are less crowded (so far), quieter (so far), and less expensive – though prices have been rising fast. These two areas have also attracted a number of high-end villas, including the beachside palace of California Wow fitness clubs owner Eric Levine.

Villa Natai, as Levine’s place is called, has 6,000 square metres of interior living space, including a 300-square-metre gym, and its own golf course. Not so long ago it was offered for sale to interested buyers at US$25 million. If you don’t want to buy, you can rent it for US$4,000 a week. Perfect for the really big family vacation.

Ibis Patong Hotel

Accor will add 7 properties in Thailand under the Novotel, Mercure, All Seasons and Ibis brands to its current local network of 39 hotels.

<Check Rates at Ibis Kata Phuket hotel>

“Thailand has been a popular tourist destination for a long time with a very diversified leisure offer, Accor’s expansion will provide tourists and business travelers more choices in some of Thailand’s most popular destinations” said Oswald Pichler, vice president for operations for Accor in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

Among the new properties are Novotel Bangkok Pratunam, the fifth under Novotel brand, which is to be opened in 2011. The fifth Ibis will also opened in the first quarter of 2009 in Nana. The other new properties are Mercure Samui Buri, All Seasons Samui Chaweng, Novotel Phuket Kamala Bay, Ibis Kata Phuket and Ibis Krabi.

“Accor has operated in Thailand for 20 years and we continue to maintain very strong partnerships with developers, hotel owners and key travel operators. We are delighted with this continued rapid expansion in Thailand” Pichler added.

In 2008, the Accor network expanded significantly in Thailand with the addition of six hotels; namely, ibis Sathorn, ibis Bophut Samui, ibis Pattaya, ibis Patong Phuket, all seasons Sathorn and all seasons Nai Harn.