Domestic Tourism In Thailand Expected To See Year-End Spike

[webfact]

Domestic tourism expected to see year-end spike

By SUCHAT SRITAMA

THE NATION

Domestic tourism is expected to surge 90 per cent in the last quarter of this year, while Japan, recovering from March's disasters, looks set to regain its crown as the top outbound destination for Thais.

Maiyarat Pheerayakoset, president of the Association of Domestic Travel, said yesterday that three factors would drive growth in domestic tourism: political stability, cheaper fuel and scheduled events such as the Royal Flora Expo in Chiang Mai from November to February.

The Christmas-New Year period and other year-end events will also stimulate local travel, she said.

The political problems last year disrupted domestic as well as inbound tourism. However, the unrest is over and local people have started travelling again, Maiyarat said.

"The flooding throughout the country has had no effect on key tourist places so far. I spent several days in the North and saw no floods at tourist attractions," she said.

"It may be a very high expectation for next quarter, but Thai tourism usually rebounds fast after a crisis," she added.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand projects 91 million domestic trips this year, generating Bt432 billion in income. It is asking the government for an extra budget to run a new campaign called "Miracle Thailand". To help boost local business travel, the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau is developing 10 cities including Pattaya, Krabi and Hua Hin as new destinations for meetings and conferences.

Surapol Sritrakul, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA), said many Thais would return to sightseeing in Japan, especially during the last three months of the year.

Thais will also travel to other regions including Europe, as the baht is strong against foreign currencies. "Japan will become the top destination for Thais once again, as it is recovering from the earthquake and massive tsunami in March."

ATTA is also confident that international visitors will head back to Thailand in the remaining months of the year, mainly because of the relative political calm.

-- The Nation 2011-08-30

[jonclark]

90% Growth by the fourth quarter that is ambitious. Good luck with that one. I'd imagine that inflationary pressures in food for example need to be kept in check to achieve such an massive jump.

[Crushdepth]

Domestic tourism expected to see year-end spike

It's called "Christmas".

[janverbeem]

I guess that will be when the coloured shirts start traveling to Bangkok for the new protests which should start around that time as Thaksin will be back by than.

[arrowsdawdle]

A national tourism ministry budgeting tax dollars to pay for promoting domestic tourism is like targeting an advertising campaign at your wife and kids to spend money at your family store. The family economy does not change except for the loss of money used to pay for the advertising. The only beneficiaries would be the supply chain. This is why it raises questions of bad judgment at the least, and speculation of corruption and abuse at the worst.

All this is speaking from the national level and tourism ministries have no business promoting domestic tourism within their borders to their own citizens. That is the job of destination private sector and destination public sector organizations; to compete for market share of inbound arrivals generated by a ministry that does its job effectively.

The responsibility of a tourism ministry is to promote inbound arrivals--especially incremental inbound arrivals--and to oversee the positioning campaigns of the individual destinations in order to monitor conformance with the overall inbound strategy. One way this is done is via a matching fund allocation strategy. The local destination, typically a hotel association, collectively contributes to a promotion and marketing fund. Then the provincial office of the ministry budgets a matching amount to what the hotel association contributed. Finally, the national ministry budgets an amount for the destination promotion fund matching the hotel association's original amount.

Hotels here are laboring under a primitive unenlightened misconception that their competition consists of other hotels at their destination. Enlightened and successful destinations are comprised of hotels and other destination stakeholders collaborating against competing destinations consistent with the inbound strategy of the national ministry. Enlightened hotels and destinations understand that the hotel is the very last decision made by a traveler, following decisions on region, country, destination, what to do, and transportation.

Enlightened hotels and destinations understand this through research. If there is any research or market testing to validate the slogan Miracle Thailand, it needs rigorous scrutiny. Vague, non-specific, self praising terminology with zero alliterative appeal are not the elements for positioning a country successfully in the global marketplace for inbound tourism. The reality that there are no miracles--snake oil notwithstanding--would be the first clue. Why would any tourism ministry want that reality subliminally countering efforts to appeal to travel consumers? Only a fortune teller might know.

This is not new information and it is not rocket science. Common sense and grounded research will invariably surpass guessing in the quest of any enlightened tourism ministry to develop their country's full tourism potential.

Edited August 30, 2011 by arrowsdawdle

[toffo9]

Keep dreaming TOT

[mca]

Keep dreaming TOT

Yeah I'd like a better internet connection too.

[jimbeam1]

Domestic tourism expected to see year-end spike

It's called "Christmas".

Is that when some bird sits on top of a tree with the tip stuck up her A--e.

jb1

[djlest]

So who actually calculates these figures???

I remember 6 months ago a post saying BKK INTL AIRPORT had spent an additional 8 million or whatever baht on better/faster immigration booths and tecnology.

Last week i was stuck in the airport for over 2 hours - i saw absolutely no difference and if anything it was worse than before...

Whoever counts the numbers, or implements these statistics is obviously the same as those who said they would improve the airport and clearly did not...

Yawn.... another Thai Lie..

[Skywalker69]

Maybe TOT expect Khun T to keep his promise to make everyone rich in six months (now 4 months)

[givenall]

Domestic tourism expected to see year-end spike

It's called "Christmas".

Is that when some bird sits on top of a tree with the tip stuck up her A--e.

jb1

Even if the Government fortune teller is correct about the90%, someone should tell the Thai Governmentthat the domestic tourist dont really have money as compared to forging tourists

[mca]

Maybe TOT expect Khun T to keep his promise to make everyone rich in six months (now 4 months)

But what about TAT?

[ginjag]

Keep dreaming TOT

Yeah I'd like a better internet connection too.

TOT telephone of

TAT tourism authority

[Tokay]

LOL I loving reading the rubbish these people release. I can't imagine what dreams they have in order to come up with such nonsense.

[Bagwan]

LOL I loving reading the rubbish these people release. I can't imagine what dreams they have in order to come up with such nonsense.

If the dreams that they experience about tourism are so wild, I can't begin to imagine what their erotic ones are like.

[Orac]

The more pertinent question would be a rise of 90 per cent from what. If this is a difference between Q3 and Q4 I would be interested to see the historic figures for these periods to see if this sort of rise is unusual or even low bearing in mind that most of Thailand seems to spend Q3 underwater whereas Q4 has the big new year holiday where a lot of people travel and Loy Krathong - there may be a few that do Christmas now as well.

[chiang mai]

LOL I loving reading the rubbish these people release. I can't imagine what dreams they have in order to come up with such nonsense.

Indeed, the only thing that's slightly more entertaining is reading the replies of posters here who have even less logic as to why it may not happen!