Too Little Thai Tourists

Thailand attracted 53,628 Sri Lankan visitors to that country last year, a 7.8% year on year (YoY) growth.

In contrast almost a mere 1/10th of that number, namely 6,000 Thais visited Sri Lanka last year.

This was said Sethaphan Buddhani, director, Thailand Tourism Authority, Mumbai Office under whose ambit Sri Lanka also falls under, at a media briefing in Colombo on Thursday to fete Malaysia based AirAsia, a budget airline’s inauguration of daily flights between Colombo and Bangkok.

He further said that his trip from Katunayake Airport to Colombo on Thursday morning took two hours, by which time he may have had flown to Bangkok!

However sounding a conciliatory note, Buddhani said that he enjoys eating Sri Lanka’s chillie crabs, a comment endorsed by Thai AirAsia CEO Tassapon Bijleveld. Buddhani further said that Thailand attracted 19.9 million visitors last year.

Meanwhile AirAsia which flies a 180 seater Airbus A320 on the Bangkok-Colombo leg had a 75% load factor on the Colombo-Bangkok flight and a 75% load factor on the Bangkok-Colombo leg. “We hope to bring it up to 80% soon,” said Bijleveld. He however refused to say what their break even load factor point was on the basis that that type of information would be beneficial to competition.  But he said that their fares were 50% less than that of conventional airlines with that benefit enjoyed by early bird bookers.

AirAsia which started its virginal flights to Colombo 2½ years ago, ie covering the Kuala Lumpur-Colombo run then, is enjoying an 88% load fact on that circuit, Bijleveld said. He claimed that they were catering to a new class of traveller and that they were not pirating passengers from other carriers. The general sales agent of AirAsia in Sri Lanka is Setmil Development (Pvt.) Ltd.

Source - thesundayleader.lk