Visa Card launches year end campaign

BANGKOK Visa Card launched its end-of-the year shopping promotion, Thursday, in cooperation with the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

The joint promotion rewards foreign visitors with special privileges at 14 shopping centres in Bangkok.

The campaign does not extend to destinations elsewhere in the country.

Suripong Tantiyanon (left), Visa country manager, Thailand and Noppadon Pakprot (right), deputy governor for tourism product and business, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).

The aim is to encourage visitors to use their credit cards to raise foreign exchange earnings for the country. It should help to revive sluggish consumer spending that dipped during the official mourning months following the death of the Late HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej in mid-October.

Visa country manager, Thailand, Suripong Tantiyanon and Tourism Authority of Thailand deputy governor for tourism product and business, Noppadon Pakprot, launched ‘Thailand Spectacular Year End 2016′ at a press gathering at one of the participating shopping malls.

TAT forecast that more than 375,000 tourists will visit Thailand during the four-day New Year period, generating more than THB5.5 billion in revenue for the country, a 12% increase from the same period last year.

TAT governor, Yuthasak Supasorn, expressed concern earlier this month that the government crackdown on zero-dollar tourism would cut the country’s tourist arrivals this year.

The China market has slowed by around 12% this year and one of the causes was the government’s determination to end the decades-long practice of zero-dollar tours in the Chinese inbound travel market.

Officially, tourism officials declare they are more interested in achieving high revenue growth than counting heads.

Zero-dollar tours brings the lowest revenue to the country hence the ‘zero’ description tagged to the decades old practice.

Tourism policy makers point to this fact saying in the long-run it will pay off in foreign exchange earnings if the country ends illegal practices that bring no tax or financial benefits to the economy.

However, old habits die hard and the prospect of tourist arrivals falling below the annual target is used as an argument that the government should go easy on suspect business practices, a sentiment zero dollar tour companies like to pass on through popular media.

Comments of gloom aside, Thailand will close the year with 32 million tourists, up from 29.8 million last year, regardless of efforts to cull rogue tour companies and guides.