Drawing on more than 70 years’ experience in the hotel and hospitality industry, our company can trace its origins back to 1948 when Founder and Honorary Chairperson, Thanpuying Chanut Piyaoui, opened her first hotel, the Princess, on Bangkok’s Charoenkrung Road.
The pioneering property was one of the first hotels in the city to offer a swimming pool, air conditioning, and modern amenities. It was also the first property to reflect Thanpuying Chanut’s vision to deliver international standards of service blended with time-honoured Thai customs and traditions.
Thanpuying Chanut had always firmly believed in Thailand’s potential to become one of the world’s most successful tourist destinations, and she believed the best way to foster this growth would be through distinctive hotels that embraced gracious Thai hospitality at their core.
Her guiding philosophy was thus: to be bold and do great things, to create things that never existed before, to pursue perfection, and to always conduct business with honour. She was also determined to lead the way and lay the foundations for other hospitality companies to follow.
Her formula for success was perfected in 1970 with the opening of our flagship hotel, Dusit Thani Bangkok. This revolutionary property uniquely elevated Thai hospitality to international standards and proudly stood as the city’s tallest edifice; an icon of luxury admired by discerning travellers from all corners of the globe.
Setting the standards by which all other luxury hotels in Bangkok would be measured, Dusit Thani Bangkok successfully laid the groundwork for our company’s subsequent expansion within Thailand and overseas. It also gave Thanpuying Chanut the perfect opportunity to achieve her dream of offering hospitality education by opening her own specialised college.
The hotel also gave our company our official name – Dusit Thani – which, translated from Thai, means ‘Town in Heaven’ (In Thai beliefs, Dusit is the name for the fourth of the seven levels of paradise). The name also references a model utopia constructed by His Majesty King Rama VI in 1918, which demonstrated a harmony between Thai and western values. The Thai-inspired, gracious hospitality delivered at our hotels and resorts worldwide is also testament to this harmony.
Today, we delighted to say that the guiding philosophy of our founder has seen us grow from a pioneering hotel company into a leading provider of hospitality services across five distinct business units – namely Hotels & Resorts, Dusit Foods, Dusit Hospitality Education, Property Development, and Hospitality-related services.
Each of these business units is designed to leverage our strengths in operating full-service hotels and ultimately build on the value of our past in innovative ways.
In fact, no matter where we are in the world, and no matter what line of business we are involved in, the guiding principles of our founder will always be integral to our operations as we continue to balance, expand and diversify our offerings with a view to generate sustainable value for all our stakeholders.
Key company milestones
As a company, Dusit has constantly evolved to meet the needs of stakeholders. From establishing our core brand in the 1970s to asset-light expansion overseas in the 1980s and the introduction of new hotel brands in the 2000s, our history features several chapters of positive change driven by a vision for growth that recognises, embraces, and builds on the value of our past.