Ministry taps Korean market

BANGKOK, 26 October 2012: Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports has outlined measures to attract more Korean travellers.

Tourism ministry spokesperson, Watchara Kannikar, said Minister Chumpol Silpa-archa was having discussions with the ASEAN-Korea Centre general secretary, Hae Moon Chung, to establish a plan to draw more Koreans to Thailand.

“On average, 1 million Korean tourists visit the country annually. Therefore, we will try to figure out the way to increase arrivals to 4 to 5 million annually in the near future,” the ministry spokesperson said.

Last year, 13 million Koreans travelled overseas, but only 1.8 million visited Thailand due to a flood situation in and around Bangkok. Chiang Mai is the top destination and golf is the most favorite activity.

“To increase tourists, Korean representative have asked Thailand to make it more convenient to visit the country while tour guides must speak the Korean language, which means we need more language courses,” he added.

Besides Korean training courses, the ministry outlined measures to encourage the market. They were:

• Exchange media between the two countries to provide tourism information;

• Oganise culture and tourism events to support Korean and ASEAN culture;

• Provide ASEAN tourism information through mobile applications to Korean tourists;

• Encourage ASEAN countries to provide Korean language in their websites.

However, Thailand’s safety and security situation particularly scam and heavy-handed tactics to sell travel programmes need to be resolved. There are insufficient low- cost airlines,” the

Sourced: ttrweekly