Thai tourism launches selfie contest

BANGKOK, Thailand - Local travelers have been invited to enter the "Thailand Only Selfie Contest", which the Tourism Authority of Thailand hopes will help boost year-end tourism.

TAT Governor Thawatchai Arunyik said the campaign was part of the agency's social network marketing strategy.

The campaign will run during the New Year holiday from December 26 to January 4.

Local tourists can take a selfie at any tourist attraction in Thailand, except hometown attractions, and upload the photo via Instagram to FacebookFanpage/thailandonlyselfiecontest with Hastag#thailandonly. The sender must describe the attraction.

"The TAT set up this campaign to encourage those who love selfies especially when they're travelling to other places during the coming New Year festival," Thawatchai said.

Participants have the chance of winning travel packages in Thailand worth of Bt370,000. The biggest prize is a full-board package worth Bt100,000, while there will also be 10 popular-vote rewards.

The TAT will announce the winners on its website on January 20.

The agency has changed its focus to social networks as it is confident the selfie contest will draw a lot of locals because statistics show there are 93.4 million cell-phone numbers in use in Thailand, with 44.6 million of the total population of 65 million using the device.

This year, TAT predicted that domestic travel would reach 129 million trips, a slight increase from last year's figure.

Full story: http://www.eturbonews.com/53872/thai-tourism-launches-selfie-contest

-- eTN 2014-12-22

Un !@#%@!# believable. Thainess and desperation at its finest.

Saw someone taking a picture of their cup of coffee this morning at breakfast in the hotel I'm at.

Just a cup of coffee they poured themselves from the buffet.

Can they enter it?

I'm not saying this whole taking pictures of every single thing you eat or drink has gone too far, but seriously......

Too Late I'm afraid.

Does it count as a selfie with 300 Chinese tourists standing in your way ?

Saw someone taking a picture of their cup of coffee this morning at breakfast in the hotel I'm at.

Just a cup of coffee they poured themselves from the buffet.

Can they enter it?

I'm not saying this whole taking pictures of every single thing you eat or drink has gone too far, but seriously......

I'm having the horrible thought of drivers / motorcyclists taking selfies of themselves in action and if they've had a grog or several ... !

I should imagine they won't be using ones like this

Saw someone taking a picture of their cup of coffee this morning at breakfast in the hotel I'm at.

Just a cup of coffee they poured themselves from the buffet.

Can they enter it?

I'm not saying this whole taking pictures of every single thing you eat or drink has gone too far, but seriously......

Forgive them.........small things amuse small minds.

Thailand Only Selfie contest.

So, a T.O.S contest?

Should be interesting.

If you enter, are you a T.O.Ser?

Or is that title reserved for this contest's organisers?

I'm little confused that this idea not came form the PM.

Whatever else you say about TAT they certainly are trying hard and coming up with new ideas all the time.

Facebook is another thing, small minds talk about people, how small do they have to be to talk about themselves and tell the world of everything they do ?

So, is TAT going to be handing out selfie sticks to tourists on arrival?

I'm little confused that this idea not came form the PM.

It did!! But he is sharing the glory!!

This proves it once and for all!!

There are no limits to the stupidity of Thai officialdom!! Lord have mercy.................

Saw someone taking a picture of their cup of coffee this morning at breakfast in the hotel I'm at.

Just a cup of coffee they poured themselves from the buffet.

Can they enter it?

I'm not saying this whole taking pictures of every single thing you eat or drink has gone too far, but seriously......

I was sat in a pub last week, some woman walked in with a man friend. She got a drink and must have taken 5 pictures of it before taking a number of pictures of his drink. Once the food came up !!!! pictures from above, bar level, even got the bar man to take a picture of her sitting by the food.

I thought the excitement was never going to end.

Saw someone taking a picture of their cup of coffee this morning at breakfast in the hotel I'm at.

Just a cup of coffee they poured themselves from the buffet.

Can they enter it?

I'm not saying this whole taking pictures of every single thing you eat or drink has gone too far, but seriously......

I was sat in a pub last week, some woman walked in with a man friend. She got a drink and must have taken 5 pictures of it before taking a number of pictures of his drink. Once the food came up !!!! pictures from above, bar level, even got the bar man to take a picture of her sitting by the food.

I thought the excitement was never going to end.

Wait until they get to the sexpart of the date!!

Honest question: why do you live in Thailand, when you clearly hate it so much?

Un !@#%@!# believable. Thainess and desperation at its finest.

but what if you prefer to use a dictaphone?

See that Prayuth is leaving for China this morning, I am sure that the Chinese leaders will be very, very impressed by this new selfie contest!!

China now have two Disneylands: Hong Kong and Chailand!!

Honest question: why do you live in Thailand, when you clearly hate it so much?

Honest answer: We care about the country and its people, and when things get outright stupid, we comment on it. Because we in your naivety believe, that maybe we can prevent the stupidities from getting repeated over and over again.

Un !@#%@!# believable. Thainess and desperation at its finest.

but what if you prefer to use a dictaphone?

Use your fingers like everyone else does.....

So, is TAT going to be handing out selfie sticks to tourists on arrival?

Just don't put up 3 fingers or eat a sandwich, oops

Honest question: why do you live in Thailand, when you clearly hate it so much?

We don't "hate it so much", in fact we take great pleasure at the simpletons that run this place and the idiocy they regularly come up with.

Their stupidity rarely affect me except to put a smile on my face.

Lighten up. Don't take this forum so seriously.

I'm little confused that this idea not came form the PM.

.

The Indian wedding charters he was working on fell through when he learned Indians weren't Buddhist, and he is now quite occupied courting Pakistanis for baptism ceremonies.

Honest question: why do you live in Thailand, when you clearly hate it so much?

Honest answer: We care about the country and its people, and when things get outright stupid, we comment on it. Because we in your naivety believe, that maybe we can prevent the stupidities from getting repeated over and over again.

You actually believe that Thailand gives a toss what you think?

Honest question: why do you live in Thailand, when you clearly hate it so much?

I love living in Thailand. However I do hate this whole "take a picture of your food and drink" phenomena.

Not just here, not just in Asia but everywhere.

Worldwide.

It's just plain stupid.

Un !@#%@!# believable. Thainess and desperation at its finest.

I thought it was mostly an asian thing to make selfies so much. Although this is a good idea to get people out to different tourist attractions i serioualy doubt it will encourage any would-be travellers to choose thailand as their destination nor do i think anyone visiting already would change their plans just to enter a selfie contest.

More likely this would only encourage people to take more selfies on their pre-scheduled trip

You beat me to it, Phatcharanan. ;-)

Ingenious hot air once again - I'm loving it

i wonder if anyone will take a selfie with a Russian person??... Seems to be the only thing attracted to Pattaya now.