Tat Working With Chiang Mai Businesses

[ChiangMaiMail]

TAT working with Chiang Mai businesses

Jedsadapong Wongkiew

Ms. Juthaporn Roengron-arsa, Deputy Governor of the TAT’s Europe, Africa, Middle East and Americas Market and the Tourism Authority of Thailand met with Chiang Mai tourism oriented businesses at the Rati Lanna Hotel on July 8 to seek local input in promoting Chiang Mai in the North and South American markets.

During the first quarter of this year, the number of tour groups from the Americas grew by more than 20 %, when compared to the growth rate in general which is at 6 %. Tourism earned the country more than 4.5 billion baht.

She said the TAT is working on to mobilizing the ideas from the private sector to help launch tourism marketing in the North American and Latin America. “We are trying to accelerate the marketing plan in order to boost confidence in the tourism market after the extension of the Emergency Decree. We expect that this year tourism will generate more than a trillion baht in revenue.”

She added that next year about 15 million visitors are expected to bring in about 600 billion baht in revenue.

Chiang Mai, she reported, is the main tourist destination for visitors from the Americas, and, accompanied by the marketing managers from the North America TAT offices, they met with local tourism related business operators for the first time.

Last year, 790,000 visitors were from the Americas, a 6.28% drop from the previous year. They could generate as much as 40 billion baht in revenue.

“Although the number of tourists is still small, they stay much longer, an average of 15 days per tourist. The drop was due to the recession in the United States but with the economy starting to recover we have seen a jump in the number of visitors, as high as 10-22 %” she noted.

“Although we have faced domestic problems caused by internal politics, resulting in a drop in number of American visitors, the TAT has launched different promotional campaigns such as providing more information in PR kits, organizing overseas road shows, short-term marketing plans, joining hands with both domestic and international airlines, and launching more tourism campaign like the “Amazing Thailand” in the country as well as abroad,” she told the group.

The main selling point of the promotional campaign will be offering more tours on the ways of life of Thai people, its cultures and traditions, she added.

“Now, we are aiming at Americas because it is a big tourist market and has high potential, particularly in South America. We are consulting with Northern operators, as well as marketing managers from TAT’s offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Canada who joined us to work out a marketing strategy,” Juthaporn added.

The Deputy Governor of TAT added that extending the Emergency Degree for another three months has really affected Thailand’s image with tourists but they have to work with it.

“The TAT has to work harder to educate our visitors about Thailand and safety and security in the country,” she said.

On July 12 the TAT invited about 500 members of the international mass media to visit Thailand so that they could get first hand information about the situation in the country and could then let the world know that Thailand is a safe place to visit.

She concluded noting that tourists from the Middle East are returning to Thailand so that foreign confidence seems to be returning.

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[chiangmaimail]2010/07/20[/chiangmaimail]