Ministry told to improve data

Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports acknowledges it needs to supply clearer and more timely data from its offices around the country.

Minister, Somsak Pureesrisak, said Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra,  had reminded the ministry that one its core responsibilities was to collect in-depth data for each province to allow the government to make clear strategic decisions on building competitiveness in regional tourism.

It is the first public acknowledgement by the ministry that it needs to improve tourism data. Data collection and analysis was one of the basic assignments written into the ministry’s brief when it was formed. It took over the entire process from the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

However, it has concentrated on national statistics. At a provincial level tourism statistics are a year at least behind the delivery of national data.

“Raw data from the provinces will be fed into a database to map out measures to standardise national tourism as our aim is to achieve Bt2.2 trillion in tourism revenue in 2015,” the minister explained.

The collecting methodology will be the same as the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Competitiveness Index.

In that index there are around 25 measures of tourism and three sub-indexes – regulatory framework; business environment and infrastructure; and human, cultural and natural resources.

“The information will cover number of foreign and local tourists in each province, spending and length of stay, hygiene, Internet access, air transport, tourism place standards, and skilled workers.”

The ministry hopes that the data will allow it to create clusters of provinces that can be marketed as a single destination. This would be popular with provinces that have Lanna culture and values such as Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai but more data is required on how to link Lanna culture destinations with neighbouring countries to create new tourism trails.

“Data collection begins the process and makes easier to know what areas in the country should do strategically to capture a specific group of tourists…the scheme will help boost tourism revenue in the areas, especially in secondary destinations,” the minister said.

Another objective is to spread tourism away from Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, Samui, Hua Hin and Chiang Mai that are over used.

Data collection will be up to speed to report on the January to March first quarter in 2014.

Tourism private sector leaders have asked the ministry to raise creditability of its data collection and arrivals statistics.

Reports on statistics by TTR Weekly online invariably prompt a challenge from readers indicating the need to clarify, or show the veracity of the collection process and conclusions.

Yet in the three years of reader criticism of tourism data collection, not a single response or clarification has been presented by the ministry. Officials prefer to ignore private sector concerns.

Association of Thai Travel Agents president, Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn, earlier told TTR Weekly that the categories and breakdown for tourist arrivals needed to be improved.

“Classification and data interpretation should be clear to strengthen travel agency marketing plans and strategy,” the minister said.

The private sector needs the ministry to divide tourist arrivals into categories to gain a real tourism business figure rather than just counting all the people who pass through the border checkpoints as is the case now, he added.

Some of the categories that travel agencies would like to see in the data fields include FIT, group tours, VFRs, business, investment, meeting and incentive as well as niche market travellers such as weddings where one of the partners is Thai.

MICE is a major player, but agencies promoting it lack exact data to show how many visitors are attending meetings, how much do they spend and the length of stay. Essentially the figures released on this sector are at best an educated guess or based on limited exit surveys conducted at Bangkok’s main airport.

Sourced: ttrweekly