Isan tourism scrapes by

Tourism to Northeast Thailand, or Isan, during the New Year holiday  was uninspiring, clocking a performance that was just on par with 2010, Thai Federation of Provincial Tourist Association northeast chapter vice president Samer Chindapong reported.

“During the New Year holidays, average resort or hotel occupancy in 20 northeast provinces stood at 70% and the tourism spending during the festive holidays were around Bt2 billion,” he said.

“The performance was very similar to 2010 with no signs of growth to talk about. This time round we had flood victims who did not want to travel and the year before  political factors dampened travel,” he explained.

Some northeast provinces registered higher occupancies such as Loei, Chaiyaphum and Nakhon Ratchasima mainly due to the national park attractions and the cooler weather.

“In the past we could have counted on a 100% occupancy during the festive season and earnings of Bt3 billion,” he said.

He called on the government to put in place incentives to kick-start domestic tourism, or many hotels in the provinces would face a financial crisis as they enter the low season in May.

In 2010, northeast provinces welcomed 7,124,892 tourists, of which 6,905,701 were Thai citizens and only 219,191 were foreigners.

The region has 887 accommodations with 38,222 rooms. The average length of stay was 1.42 days.

The Department of Tourism and Sports provides data collected from offices in 19 provinces. It left out Bueng Kan province which was only included as Northeast province in March 2011.

Source - ttrweekly