Thai Tourism Industry Needs To Stand Out

Tourism industry needs to stand out

New country rivals emerging in region

BANGKOK: -- Thai tourism operators need to differentiate their products in order to maintain their competitiveness in Southeast Asia as Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma and Laos are rising as strong competitors in the region, experts warned yesterday.

Thailand could lose ground to neighbouring countries if it does not offer any new tourist destinations, said John Koldowski, the director of the Strategic Intelligence Centre at the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata).

Speaking at a seminar held by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), Mr Koldowski said that besides developing differentiated tourism products, Thailand also needed to reconsider its tourism development focus, whether it is revenue, quality or the number of tourists.

He projected that the Asia-Pacific region would see tourism growth of 11% in 2007. The forecast for the sme year is 7.1% for the United States, 8.5% for South Asia, 10% for the Pacific, 13.4% for North Asia and 14.7% for Southeast Asia.

The prospect of such healthy growth is good news for tourism operators who have the foresight to tap new trends and are well prepared for global changes, such as those in technology, he said.

The future of global tourism will involve more risk factors from terrorism, natural disasters and disease outbreaks. These factors have significant influence over the whole industry's profitability. As a result, operators should conduct more market research in order to meet the real demand of their targeted tourist groups, said Mr Koldowski.

He said Thailand had the opportunity to achieve its target of attracting 12 million foreign arrivals this year as the number of tourists during the coming peak season should rise significantly. The country will have no problem attracting 20 million foreign arrivals by 2008 either.

However, Thailand should be concerned over the quality of tourists more than the number, he added.

Walailak Noypayak, the TAT's director of market intelligence, said technology had changed many aspects of the tourism industry, most notably in the way the Internet allowed tourists to deal directly with operators in destination countries.

Consequently, she said, the role of tour operators may be reduced, and those that hope to survive need to improve the services by changing their roles to be consultants. She suggested that operators also look to expand into potential new markets, particularly China, India and Russia.

Ms Walailak said the behaviour of tourists had changed, as many more preferred to travel by themselves in order to freely enjoy their trips instead of booking packages arranged by tour operators.

Associate Professor Pornpen Vora-Sittha of the National Institute of Development Administration suggested that operators to make better use of available research to improve their services to meet the needs of different tourist groups.

--Bangkok Post 2005-08-28