Thailand’s Tourism 2016 Plan: Quality era is here

Tourism Authority of Thailand says its 2016 promotional theme will focus on positioning the kingdom as a “quality leisure destination through Thainess”.

Speaking at the TAT Action Plan 2016 conference, Monday, TAT acting governor, Juthaporn Rerngronas, said the plan marks the start of a new era for Thai tourism.

The wording of the new strategy indicates an end to decades of focussing on “quantity”, as measured by visitor arrivals, and a total shift to “quality” as measured by visitor expenditure, average length of stay and the overall quality of the visitor experience.

“This plan marks the opening of a new chapter for Thai tourism. It is based on the fact that there is more than adequate accessibility to Thailand via air, road and sea connections, as well as smooth facilitation that allows visa-free or visa-on-arrival access for citizens from 68 countries and territories.”

She added: “The insertion of the word ‘quality’ into the theme is designed to help the entire Thai tourism industry focus on developing quality products and services. There has already been a remarkable improvement in our portfolio of quality tourism products over the years, and we expect this trend to continue in the years ahead.”

The targets for 2016, as measured entirely in revenue earnings, will increase 8% over projected earnings for 2015, or around THB2.3 trillion. Of that, THB1.53 trillion will be generated by international visitors, while around THB807,000 million will come from domestic market.

Even though TAT did not project international visitor numbers it is expected that the figure will reach 30.56 million visits in 2016.

Thailand tourism revenue is targeted to generate THB2.2 trillion this year, including THB1.4 trillion from 28.8 million international tourists.

The problem facing TAT is that the research benchmarks for calculating revenue are dubious and to arrive at accurate revenue figures for tourism will require a hefty investment in detailed research. Today, tourism relies on sloppy exit surveys conducted by university students. The claimed spend as citied by tourists leaving the country is vastly exaggerated.

The acting governor added: “As Thailand is located right in the heart of ASEAN, we can be sure of strong arrival figures for years to come, assuming that the external and internal operating environment remains stable. So, we can confidently say that the era of promoting ‘quantity’ is over. The era of promoting ‘quality’ has begun.”

The new policy to develop a sustainable and well-integrated tourism industry will require close cooperation with the public and private sectors and will focus on three R’s:

Repositioning: Gearing towards tourism quality (quality leisure destination).

Restructure: Identifying new target markets both in terms of geography and customer segmentation.

Rebalance: Attaining a balance between economic, social and environmental development by better spreading the benefits of tourism across Thai society, and reducing the social, cultural and environmental impact.

The 2016 marketing strategy will refresh the Amazing Thailand branding logo by adding a “Smile” symbol as well as retaining the “Thainess” identity.

The plan also concentrates on niche markets such as golf, weddings and honeymoons, health and wellness, green tourism, ‘halal tourism’ and female travellers.

TAT will attend international trade shows next year such as Tokyo Golf Fair 2016 and host the Thailand Golf Travel Mart.

For Digital marketing, it will launch mobile application ‘Thailand Med Tourism’ for health and wellness market and hashtag campaign #RomanticThailand for honeymoon market. Mega fam trip will be organised for wedding planners to visits Thailand, while TAT will join the Wedding Destination Congress to meet worldwide wedding planners.

To develop supply chain, TAT will organise an Amazing Romance Consortium campaign with local operators to develop honeymoon specialist agents and pre-wedding services.

For destination marketing, TAT will promote Lanta Island in Krabi as a honeymoon destination and Rayong as a wedding destination for Indian market.

For green tourism market, TAT will host the PATA Adventure Travel and Responsible Tourism Conferences in February in Chiang Rai and develop green tourism products, volunteerism and community based tourism.

TAT will also attend international luxury marts such as International Luxury Travel Mart in Cannes, Shanghai and Cancun Mexico and Luxperience in Sydney.

For the female travel market, in August next year TAT will organise a campaign to honour Queen Sirikit’s 84 years birthday in a month of Mom, Celebration of Silk The Miracle Journey event, and Young Designer using silk projects.

“We call on tourism operators to join the campaign by offering privileges for female travellers who visit Thailand in August, next year, for example, restaurants should give a free dessert menu, shops should give premium souvenir, or spa should offer free foot massage,” she said.

For the Muslim market, she said: “TAT believes the Muslim market has high potential due to a population of around 1.6 billion worldwide. Thailand is ready to welcome this market and aims to be a Muslim friendly destination.”

In the ASEAN region there are around 240 million Muslims, mainly in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Other target markets are the GCC countries (United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait), Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria) are also very attractive markets in this category.

In existing markets, TAT will organise roadshow to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, China, Mumbai and New Delhi in India, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.

To tap new markets, TAT will build networks by inviting international tourism associations and leading tour operators to hold meetings and seminars in Thailand such as from Brazil and Spain. Roadshow will focus on South America (Argentina and Colombia), British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, Ireland, Scottland’s Glasgow and Edinburgh, Poland’s Warsaw, CIS, Oman, and United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi.

TAT will also open an office in Prague, Czech Republic, next February, in a response to an increase in travel from East Europe.