Thai Cabinet declares 2015 Thai traditional tourism year

[rubl]

Yep! They're desperate!

Thai traditional tourism ?

Is the cabinet endorsing sex tourism, scams, double / triple pricing and all the other little things that are commonplace but hidden or denied and never sorted out ?

Hang on I though the latest promotion was 'martial law tourism' which was rolled out a few weeks ago.

What is traditional tourism?

Thai traditional tourism is something so obvious that even TAT doesn't feel a need to explain it.

In other words, me too I have no idea what they're mumbling about.

PS although with the larger number of periods Martial Law is/was in place in Thailand it still isn't an officially recognised 'tradition'

[wilcopops]

As it would appear that the Thai authorities themselves have no idea what constitutes Thai culture it's hard to see what they think they'll be promoting.

It would of course be nicer if the Thai tourist industry and =those running it spoke with a more unified voice rather than showering us with various takes and conflicting ideas on the situation from sources that clearly aren't communicating with each other.

the whole thing just looks more and more ridiculous with every pronouncement.

Edited November 13, 2014 by wilcopops

[Jim walker]

Thought soldiers planed invasions and battle strategies not tourism and holiday plans for western visitors.

[PatOngo]

Farang tourists have already embrased the traditional culture...............they're fleeing the scene in droves.

[wilcopops]

Thought soldiers planed invasions and battle strategies not tourism and holiday plans for western visitors.

please explain......

[wilcopops]

pronouncements like the OP - lead me to despair...... It is clear to all that the policies and direction of tourism in Thailand are unplanned, unsatisfactory and mostly undesirable. Yet again an "authority" thinks my making a statement like the OP they are contributing to some kind of rosy future or at least an improvement.

Yet the banality and obvious lack of research or eve forethought before the pronouncement only reveals that most of the people involved in creating tourism policies in Thailand are simply not up to the job. Like so many people in authority here one has to question how/why they were deemed qualified for the job in the first place.

[cmsally]

So presumably the TAT and the "Ministry of Tourism and Sports" (which now handles things the TAT used to) are now working against each other. Whereas the latter handles tour registration and guide registration/training which they seem to check and require paperwork and more paperwork to fit the bill; the latter is just going to bypass the whole thing and hire a bunch of teenagers to do the job. Excellent!! - maybe not !

[marcusd]

The owner of Siam niramit must be A friend of the TAT bosses

[CapFarmer]

"She said teenagers in the communities will be trained and hired as local tour guides for foreign tourists."

The problem is that if you want to promote Thai Tradition, teenagers are probably not the best group to do this.

They are not as useful a resource for this as the older generations.

Plus are the teenagers multi-lingual? Will they be able to speak in the languages of the tourists they are guiding?

Finally, teenagers, they do tend to have other things on their minds. Traditionally anyway, not sure they are always the sort of traditional behaviour this campaign is thinking about though.

+1

all of these were my thoughts exactly..they can't be serious if they think hiring teenagers to be trained to be tour guides is a good idea. I don't know if they thought this idea would elicit "oh so nice of them, they are helping out less fortunate people in their developing of tourism" but that certainly isn't the case...as you said, how many Thai teenagers actually have bilingual skills and how many actually care to learn...Also, most Thai teenagers I have met, could care less about something of historical/cultural meaning, they probably are unaware of half of these things they are going to be showing even existing...this is a TERRIBLE idea in so many way, it just shows that thinking like this is going to get this industry nowhere, I mean its laughable, thats what i did I just laughed

Maybe if they published actual historical facts in the school curriculum, instead of all the fairy tales about Thailand as the center of the SE Asian universe, then the teen age population would be more interested in historical sights and traditions. Couple the fiction taught as history in schools with the crap that people in position of authority spout about on the news media and is it any wonder that Thai youth have little respect for authority and have tuned out...

[CapFarmer]

"She said teenagers in the communities will be trained and hired as local tour guides for foreign tourists."

The problem is that if you want to promote Thai Tradition, teenagers are probably not the best group to do this.

They are not as useful a resource for this as the older generations.

Plus are the teenagers multi-lingual? Will they be able to speak in the languages of the tourists they are guiding?

Finally, teenagers, they do tend to have other things on their minds. Traditionally anyway, not sure they are always the sort of traditional behaviour this campaign is thinking about though.

+1

all of these were my thoughts exactly..they can't be serious if they think hiring teenagers to be trained to be tour guides is a good idea. I don't know if they thought this idea would elicit "oh so nice of them, they are helping out less fortunate people in their developing of tourism" but that certainly isn't the case...as you said, how many Thai teenagers actually have bilingual skills and how many actually care to learn...Also, most Thai teenagers I have met, could care less about something of historical/cultural meaning, they probably are unaware of half of these things they are going to be showing even existing...this is a TERRIBLE idea in so many way, it just shows that thinking like this is going to get this industry nowhere, I mean its laughable, thats what i did I just laughed

FWIW, raised this topic with the teens hanging around in the village here and they all laughed as well. Even they get the joke.

[CantSpell]

Hub of announcements .......

on bicycle

[DLock]

One only has to type in "Thailand" into Google and look at the images to see how Thailand is viewed and what other people take pictures of when they travel here. It's not that hard.

She doesn't have to look to far, or even deviate much from past campaigns - beaches, sun, islands, long tails, snorkeling, nightlife, temples, shopping, markets, animals, trekking etc etc.

Thailand is visually stunning. She's trying too hard and trying to do too many things for too many people. Focus.

But one only hopes she is sitting down with the other agencies and telling them to sort out the scams, ripoffs, policing, rubbish, infrastructure and everything else that undermines a great holiday in Thailand.

...and please, no more Press Releases.

Its the oddest thing!

I did exactly that and for the most part it was beaches some elephants, a temple or ten and about 5-10% cute girls.

Thats not the odd thing... heres the odd thing.

I did the same for Japan, almost the same results. Something iconic for about 15 results then a few more deviations.

But type in any of the big European countries and the first 10 to 20 results are all maps and flags. Its bizarre.

You're right.