China drives agency business

10 May 2013 2041 | World Travel News

Association of Thai Travel Agents’ member companies handled 1,624,513 international tourists at Suvarnabhumi Airport in the first four months of this year representing substantial improvement of 46.40% over 1,109,623 visits during the same period last year.

ATTA released its data, Wednesday, based on fees member agencies pay to the airport to provide a meet-and-greet service for international clients. It is considered an accurate barometer for the tourism industry but is limited to travel through Bangkok.

China continued as the top market for travel agency business with well over 500,000 visits up 78% on the same period last year. Experts predict it will continue to boom benefiting all Southeast Asia destinations, the preferred travel region for the majority of China’s first-time travellers.

But an outbreak of H7N9 avian influenza in China could put the brakes on the outbound market and the Association of Thai Travel Agents urged members to monitor the situation carefully.

ATTA president, Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn, said tour operators should have a contingency plan in place in case there was a decline in visits from China if the virus threat was not contained.

“We have to have updates on this situation and ensure Thailand remains clear of the virus…hopefully the virus this time will not cause problems for Thailand.”

“I am very worried that we could be facing a similar threat as SARS (November 2002 and July 2003).”

So far, the death toll from the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China reached 31 of 129 people infected. However, World Health Organisation has said there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

For January to April, China supplied 543,992 trips to Thailand increasing 78.35% from 304,980 during the same period last year. Russia was in the second slot (305,402; +46.69%) followed by Japan (107,641; +81.86%), South Korea (68,014; +13.15%) and India (66,970; -9.18%).

China has been the strongest market for Thailand’s inbound travel agents for the entire four months and April saw the same kind of substantial increases at 87.57% on 165,063 trips compared with 88,001 trips during the same month in 2012.

Russia took second place with 58,088 trips improving 44.31% from 40,252 trips, while neighbouring Vietnam ranked third with 18,224 trips growing 73.59% from 10,498 trips.

European travel experts told TTR Weekly, the boom in Russian trips to Thailand was partly due a decision to reduce charters to Turkey and Egypt over political and safety concerns. The charters have moved to Thailand at least for the time being.

There was also a blip in India’s performance down 26.87% in April, but it remained in fourth place with 15,861 trips compared to 21,690 trips during the same month last year.

India and China are considered safe bets for travel agents as travellers in these two markets still prefer to use travel agencies than make direct bookings via the internet.

Japan in fifth place generated 14,863 trips, up 34.05% from 11,088 trips. The next top five markets in April were: Taiwan (14,118; +92.13%); South Korea (11,679; -5.68%); Hong Kong (8,644; +10.11%); the United Kingdom (6,052; +1.75%); and Germany (5,855; +12.92%).