Tourism will fast track recovery

Tourism Council of Thailand believes tourism will comeback fast and play a vital role in getting the country’s economy back on track.

On the sidelines of the Tourism Authority of Thailand flood briefing, Wednesday, TCT vice president, Pornthip Hirunkate said she was confident that tourism could earn the kind of revenue to fast track economic recovery.

“Thailand will need at least Bt8 billion to restore infrastructure,” said Ms Pornthip, noting tourism could earn as much as Bt1 trillion if the government ensures the business environment was stable.

All association representatives attending the update agreed tourism would recover quickly as  the country was dealing with a natural disaster rather than political or security related crisis that undermined confidence in stability.

“ But we have to make sure flood updates are accurate so overseas markets will have confidence to support our tourism industry,” said Ms Pornthip.

“Public health is a major issue after a national disaster of this magnitude,” she added warning the industry to be aware of the challenges and ensure it had the facts to forward to business partners.

Thai Hotels Association reported that for the first half of November occupancy rates in Bangkok  hotels had dropped dramatically.

“For four to five-star hotels the average is around 30% for international guests in the inner city,” said THA representative Opas Netraumpai.

However in the three-star and below categories, particularly for hotels outside of the flood zone, the picture was positive. Hotels  in Pattaya and Hua Hin were enjoying occupancies of 90% as city residents evacuated from their homes.

TCT believes tourist arrival in 2011 will decline by 10% to around 18.5 million, down a 1 million from the original target set by Ministry of Tourism and Sports.

TAT said it was forecasting a fall-off of 300,000 tourists arriving through Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport if the capital remained flooded in December.

According to the data provided by the Department of Tourism for the first 10 months of this year, Thailand welcomed 15,799,037 tourist arrivals, up 25.01% from 12,637,793 last year.

Source - ttrweekly