Tourism / Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT)

Tourism
Report: Chatrudee Theparat

New campaign launch to spur the continuity of tourism is required

Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) plans to launch a promotional campaign to boost domestic tourism during November and December this year and the first quarter of next year.

Tourism Authority of Thailand governor Yuthasak Supasorn

TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the campaign is aimed to attract Thai visitors to travel at home, instead of going to Japan, Korea or Hong Kong. One of the reasons is the agency is quite worried about its tourism prospect due to economic sluggishness. The flooding also remains one of the factors to hit the tourism sentiment among locals. While tourists from Europe, their arrivals remain uncertain in the coming winter season.

The new campaign is aimed at reducing tourism cost among Thai travelers hit by sluggish economy and the flooding. The campaign will also help the tourism industry move ahead continuously after the end of the existing “Co-payment scheme” and "Rao Tiew Duay Kan" (We Travel Together) tourism stimulus campaign this October 31.

Under the campaign, it will capture a luxurious group or high-end travelers who are ready to spend and are planning to travel overseas such as Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan after countries lift Covid-19 restrictions on foreign tourists from October.

“The new campaign is likely to have the same pattern of “We Travel Together,” he said.

Mr Yuthasak believed TAT would be able to achieve its tourism target as expected previously, with its tourism revenue of 1.5 trillion baht. Of the total, about 800 billion baht would be spent by foreign tourists and about 650 billion baht by domestic travelers.

In the past three quarters, the number of foreign visitors totaled 6 million. For the last quarter of this year, the agency projected its number would be 1.5 million per month.

During September, foreign arrivals showed a rising trend. The data showed its arrivals increased to 59,005 per day on September 30, compared to early September of 45,000-46,000. They came from Malaysia, India, and Laos. For the long- haul markets such as Europe, the number of arrivals were not as good as expected previously. Then, it is essential for the agency to “wait and see” the situation in the coming winter season.

As of September 30, the number of Malaysian arrivals was 972,699, followed by 561,656 from India, 410,563 from Laos, 311,576 from Singapore and 309,034 from Cambodia.

“The agency is quite confident that Thailand can achieve the target of 10 million of foreign arrivals as expected, mainly driven by short haul market with generating 550 billion-baht revenue. At the same time, the agency is waiting for a decision of Chinese government whether to allow its local people to travel outside the country,” he said.