TAT, Baidu team up to promote Thai tourism online

[webfact]

TAT, Baidu team up to promote Thai tourism online

BANGKOK, 14 June 2016 (NNT) – An agreement has been signed by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and Chinese search engine company Baidu to increase the accessibility of online data concerning Thai tourism.

TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn and Mr Hu Yong, general manager of Baidu’s International Business Unit, co-chaired the ceremony to sign a memorandum of understanding between the two agencies. The agreement is aimed to establish cooperation to disseminate information on Thai tourism and TAT projects through online channels of Baidu, with Chinese people as the target audience.

As part of the ceremony, Baidu unveiled its mobile application called Baidu Map, which was designed to help facilitate Chinese tourists while traveling in foreign countries, including Thailand. The app provides users with information about tourist attractions, transportation, restaurants as well as products and services available in Thailand, all in Chinese language. Through the GPS system, it also displays street addresses of tourist places both in Thai and Chinese.

With over 500 million users worldwide at present, Baidu Map is considered an effective channel for Thai tourism operators to reach Chinese-speaking customers. The app is expected to attract more visitors from China and, in turn, bring Thai-Chinese relations even closer.


-- NNT 2016-06-14

[smedly]

I hope it includes the list of road and water related carnage for the last 10 years and what is being done to improve things

[Srikcir]

The app provides users with information about tourist attractions, transportation, restaurants as well as products and services available in Thailand

Any opportunity for Thai restaurants, products and services to get priority listing in Baidu, ie, through special rewards to Baidu?

Given how the Chinese seem to want to keep their tourist expenses "in house" with Chinese-directed enterprises, Thai enterprises may not gain any advantage with this agreement.

[webfact]

TAT joins Chinese search engine giant to promote Thai tourism among Chinese quality tourists



BANGKOK: -- The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and the Chinese search engine giant Baidu have joined hands to promote Thailand's tourism industry among Chinese tourists.

Under the cooperation the Chinese search engine giant officially launched its travel map called Baidu Map application for outbound Chinese tourists, primarily expected to attract Chinese self-guided individual travellers with high spending power.

As The NNT reported, the cooperation agreement was signed yesterday between TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn and Mr Hu Yong, general manager of Baidu’s International Business Unit.

Baidu Map provides users with information about tourist attractions, transportation, restaurants as well as products and services available in Thailand in Chinese and Thai languages.

Through the GPS system, it also displays street addresses of tourist places both in Thai and Chinese.

With over 500 million users worldwide at present, Baidu Map is considered an effective channel for Thai tourism operators to reach Chinese-speaking customers.

The app is expected to attract more visitors from China and, in turn, bring Thai-Chinese relations even closer.

The Bangkok Post reported that TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the number of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand is expected to reach 10 million this year, an increase from 8 million in 2015, generating 509 billion baht in revenue, up 35%.

The application would help to increase tourism income by at least 20 per cent, from the current spending of Chinese visitor of around 5,000 baht per person.

The cooperation between TAT and Baidu should help draw in more quality Chinese tourists to the country, which many want to see it happen, he said.

Director of the international business development department at Baidu Inc Mr Richard Lee said Baidu is now working with the TAT to develop service apps to provide information about popular tourist attractions with audio.

Baidu Map is available in Mandarin Chinese and Thai. It offers maps of Thailand’s tourist attractions, restaurants and hotels for a combined 17,000 places.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/tat-joins-chinese-search-engine-giant-promote-thai-tourism-among-chinese-quality-tourists/


-- Thai PBS 2016-06-14

[trainman34014]

'Quality' Chinese tourists don't come to Thailand on holiday; they go to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Australia or the US.

[impulse]

'Quality' Chinese tourists don't come to Thailand on holiday; they go to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Australia or the US.

Not true. Thailand is a popular (long) weekend jaunt among the well to do from China. A couple of hours on a plane and you go from freezing your noogies to the sunny beach.

[gandalf12]

'Quality' Chinese tourists don't come to Thailand on holiday; they go to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Australia or the US.

Not true. Thailand is a popular (long) weekend jaunt among the well to do from China. A couple of hours on a plane and you go from freezing your noogies to the sunny beach.

A couple of hours on a plane, are you sure? It is over 3 hours to Hong Kong

[impulse]

Not true. Thailand is a popular (long) weekend jaunt among the well to do from China. A couple of hours on a plane and you go from freezing your noogies to the sunny beach.

A couple of hours on a plane, are you sure? It is over 3 hours to Hong Kong

Hundreds of millions of 'em live within a 1000 mile flight to CNX or BKK. Takes me 4-5 hours to fly the 2000 miles BKK to Beijing, and that's pretty far north in the country.

Even that's a hop and a skip compared to the time to Europe or Oz.

[american12bthai]

they do undersstand that its IN CHINA. .. right?

did you know that uninstalling it will only duplicate itself somewhere else?

Baidu is one of the causes for window users to move to apple. lol

oh now it all makes sense as to WHY baidu software was stealing thai government data in february. it wasnt stealing its was possessing. well... if the government is OK with chinese doing that to thailand, fine. .but i am not a slave. ..

i just hope they dont ban stuff like GOOGLE, and you know, SKYPE and YOUTUBE... and thailands favorite... FACEBOOK.

i can just imagine it now, tons of lost chinese on chinese fire walled devices,

now they can create their own networks and no longer need a single thai involved, think of the savings.

Naturally they will all have pre planned stops and all the business goes to chinese families. oh my bad, thais pretending to be chinese families.

BUUUUUT.

a crafty crafter COULD exploit this for the benefit of CONTROLLING CHINESE DATA in thailand. which is what TAT is a master at. (THAT was sarcasm)

tech.

its not the device but the ability to process codes.