TAT outlines its 2011 strategies

Tourism Authority of Thailand says it will concentrate on drawing tourists from markets that have shown strong growth rates during 2010 while wooing more high-end tourists to expand yield. Tourism officials were reporting on the country’s 2010 tourism performance, yesterday, at a media briefing held at TAT’s head office.

On tourist arrivals, TAT officials said they were confident the year would close higher than the Ministry of Sports and Tourism’s 15.34 million target possibly touching a record 15.7 to 15.8 million. They base the estimate on the average 12% growth rate during the 11-month period. If correct the country could earn as much as Bt580 to Bt600 billion in revenue, up 14% to 17% from 2009. TAT governor, Suraphon Svetasreni, said he intended to be more aggressive promoting travel from emerging markets particularly those that showed high growth rates during 2010.

“Of course, we will continue to pursue improvements in China, India and Russia. And we would like to change gain more tourists from the mid to high-end sectors. In China, we will penetrate more online channels to sell up-market product. This will by-pass travel agents.” He identified the wedding market in India as a strong high-revenue business that could be exploited year-round. In ASEAN, Indonesia is the focus due to a 31.43% growth rate during January to November this year.

Travel from Indonesia is now more convenient due to an increase in low-cost carriers that are flying services to Bangkok from major Indonesian cities. Indonesia AirAsia commenced a Bangkok-Surabaya route, last month, and intends to start a Bangkok-Medan route in January. Thai AirAsia will inaugurate a Phuket-Bali service, 17 December.

Based on potential growth in the market, TAT will open an office in Jakarta in April next year. Mr Suraphon identified North African and South American countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Tunisia and Morocco as emerging destinations that TAT would cover. “ The economies are robust, but air access to Thailand is not easy and the fares are expensive due to the distances. However, network expansion of carriers from Middle East provides easier one-stop travel at their hubs.”

Also, TAT will tap national airlines there to draw first time visitors from Europe who will go for the cheaper fares sold via hub in the Middle East. “Tourists from mature European markets are repeaters. We would like to draw first-time travellers who are resident in secondary cities such as Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and Nice. Middle Eastern carriers have services to these cities ,” Mr Suraphon added.

TAT has not been so successful developing high-end travel to Thailand and blames the failure mainly on political chaos in the country. TAT Deputy Governor, European, Africa, Middle East and America, Juthaporn Rerngronasa said: “We are trying to penetrate high-end markets in Europe such as UK, Germany and Scandinavia. “Many tourists from these countries join cheap group tours using charter flights, but there are specialized high-end markets we need to tap to improve tourism yield.”

One plan is to invite more travel agents that work in the top-end luxury travel market to visit Thailand and survey products. “We were quite successful at the International Luxury Travel Market, held 6 to 9 December, in Cannes. Sellers from Thailand increased from 10 to 20 this year and they all managed to get positive appointment slots. This is a good sign,” she added. For 2011 budget year, TAT sets its tourist arrival target at 15.5 million with Bt600 million revenue.

Mr Suraphon noted that it was now possible the 2010 performance would exceed the target and even surpass the 2011 target, but he would “not review goals until much later in 2011″ when business trends and direction would be clearer. “We continue with the present target and estimates and review later in the year, based on available  performance data,” he concluded, although privately he remains concerned about the political situation in 2011, when the country begins the run up to national elections. That is a wild card that troubles the most dilligent of tourism researchers.

Source=ttrweekly