ATTA backs theme parks

BANGKOK, 4 April 2013: Thailand needs a Disneyland-style theme park  according to  the country’s travel agency association that says it will present the recommendation to the new Tourism and Sports Minister, Somsak Phurisrisak.

ATTA acting president, Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn, said the association will resubmit  its ideas on a Disneyland project because in the past the government had not taken its recommendations seriously.

“We hope the new minister will think differently about the project after we presented the plan to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra last year.”

There appears to be strong private sector support for the government to back a global branded theme park venture to attract more tourists and help the country to compete with its neighbours. But there is also opposition from those who believe the brakes should be applied to mass tourism to allow a more sustainable version of tourism to prosper.

“A Disneyland-like theme park would cost at least Bt100,000 million and the government would need to partner with a private investor,” the ATTA president said. “The potential site should be 80 to 100 km from Bangkok.”

However, he admitted it was just an idea and a considerable distance off even gaining Disneyland’s attention.

“We would expect the government to look at the feasibility and financial support….if the project is feasible then it should look for a developer.”

He added: “In the past, the government invested in other industries and overlooked tourism, although it expects the industry to deliver Bt1 trillion in revenue a year. Thailand’s attractions are declining… we urgently need new and different attractions to boost the sector.”

Critics will say there are already enough theme parks in Asia so why would Asian travellers visit another one in Thailand?

“It gives more choice and adds diversity and this will benefit the country’s tourism in the long-run,”  the ATTA  president countered.

There are currently five Disneyland parks, worldwide. They are in Anaheim, California and Florida in the United States; Japan’s Tokyo; France’s Paris; Hong Kong, while China’s Shanghai is scheduled to open in 2016.

Disneyland has not been approached, or shown any interest in building a theme park in Thailand, but in the past it did look at Thailand’s potential and decided to develop its first project in Tokyo before concentrating on parks near or in China.

One of the drawbacks, when Disneyland studied potential sites in Asia, was Thailand’s relatively small population, when compared with China, Japan, Indonesia and India and subsequently the lack of  a substantial middle class populace, who had spare cash to spend on entertainment.

Even today, Thailand’s outbound travel industry faces the same challenges. There are around 3 million outbound trips a year made for business and leisure and 80% of the trips are made by Bangkok residents.

As long as the average pay packet remains low, discretional shopping on entertainment and travel will remain limited to the capital’s middle class.

Sourced: ttrweekly