Visa-free Japan appeals to Thais

BANGKOK Thai Travel Agents Association believes the country’s outbound market will deliver 1 million trips Japan over the next two to three years.
TTAA president, Suparerk Soorangura, said Japan continues to be one of top popular destinations for Thais to travel.
Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong are also top markets followed by China.
“If the Japanese government continues to allow Thais visa-free entry, travel will boom as the destination fits well with Thai tourists. It has traditional and new tech attractions, it is a clean safe environment and has great food.”
Japan introduced a 15-day visa-free stay, 1 July, last year.
“Thailand is among Japan’s top four of Asian source markets besides China, South Korea and Taiwan.”
During January to June this year, there were 330,600 trips growing 63.8% over the same period last year, according to Japan National Tourism Organisation’s data.
This year, Thais travel to Japan should reach 600,000, the president estimated. Last year, there were 453,642 trips an increase of 74.0%.
The trend reflects growing disillusionment with destinations, mainly in Europe and North America that place considerable hurdles in front of Southeast Asian citizens to obtain a tourist visas. High visa fees and the lack of customer service by embassies , or the companies they hire to screen visa applications are the main complaints.
The TTAA president also estimated the Thai outbound market will increase 10% this year from 5.96 million trips last year, a figure from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ research and statistics department provides.
“There will be a bounce back in confidence followed by economic growth in Thailand. At the same time local tour operators are very competitive and countries that are relaxing visas will benefit,” he said.
In addition, low-cost airlines are now flying medium-hual routes such as South Korea and Japan and this will drive down air fares making these two destinations even more popular.
Low-cost, long-haul airline, Thai AirAsia X will operate direct flights from Bangkok (Don Mueang Airport) to Japan’s Tokyo Narita International Airport and Osaka Kansai International Airport starting 1 September.

sourced:ttrweekly.com