Big boost to sites for rise in visitors

The budget for 2014 is substantially higher than the allocations |for this year and next. This year, the agency has had about Bt1.7 billion to work with, while next year’s figure is Bt2.7 billion, Arnupap Gaesornsuwan, the department’s acting deputy director-general, said yesterday.
The amount will be used for the agency’s three-year tourism site improvement plan, which started early this year. The budget set aside for 2012-2013 has already been more than 70 per cent used up.
In general, 60 per cent of the three-year total will be spent on site renovation and the remainder on the organisation of activities, mainly at the local level. Most of the funding will go to local administrations to help achieve the improvement plan.
He said the budget increase would enable the authorities to improve the Kingdom’s tourism sites on a continuous basis.
At present, there are more than 10,000 tourism attractions nationwide, some 1,000 of which have big potential, he said. The budget will go to locations in every region, with sites divided into eight clusters.
Improvements will, it is hoped, lead to longer stays by foreign visitors, thus also increasing tourism revenue.
The Tourism Department, which is part of the Tourism and Sports Ministry, expects the number of foreign visitors to reach 21.8 million this year, an increase of 13 per cent from the 2011 level, while revenue is forecast at Bt930 billion.
Next year, it expects the number to grow by 10 per cent to 24 million, despite the ongoing economic difficulties in Europe and the US.
From January to November, the number of foreign arrivals increased 13.57 per cent to 19.76 million from the same period last year. In November alone, the number grew by 60.57 per cent to 2.07 million.
Arnupap said Thailand should have a wide variety of tourism attractions, similar to Singapore and Malaysia. Next year, the department will study the possibility of building a man-made theme park, and in particular the potential additional income such an attraction might generate.
One possible initiative is a movie town, which would cost more than Bt1 billion.
Study results will be finalised in April, he added.