New tourism minister strives to reach targets via inspirations
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Since assuming office early last month, Tourism Minister Somsak Pureesrisak has been busy looking for ways to ensure the country reaches its tourism targets, with his latest inspiration the "Gog Gag Tour" scheme to encourage Thais to travel Thailand and r
There remains a yawning gap between tourism earnings from local and foreign markets. This year, income generated by a forecast 24.5 million foreign tourists is projected at Bt1.14 trillion, compared with Bt500 billion to be contributed by local tourists.
Gog Gag Tour – the name comes from the sound of knocking on a neighbour’s door – is special. Somsak will assume the role of a tour guide. On May 19, Suphan Buri, where he worked as a governor before, will kick off the unseen journey.
“Really, is it true you will lead the tour programme?” a journalist asked on Wednesday, raising an eyebrow. Somsak said of course it is. The tours will be held once a month on a Sunday and he intends to join every trip if his office’s workload allows it. The governor of each province will help provide details on various locations.
The tours will focus only on unseen places of provinces across the country and will be open only to the media. He hopes that media outlets will be “kind” and expose unseen tourism on their pages and screens, stimulating a big wave of domestic travel among Thais.
“We hope what we do will help create a new dimension in tourism in each province. And we hope that Thais will follow in our footsteps and later travel on their own,” he said.
Focusing more on local tourists would help minimise the risk of serious situations unfolding and undermining overseas confidence, resulting in a drop in inbound traffic.
The scheme has no connection with the recent rapid appreciation the baht, but if the currency keeps strengthening, it will start to hurt the industry, he said.
Clearly, foreign tourists will have lower spending power because they receive fewer baht from exchanging their currencies. Then they may revise their travel plans. For example, they may elect not to stay at a five-star hotel and may eat street food instead of dining at restaurants.
Worse, they may shift away from Thailand to other regions. However, Thailand is still one of the world’s most attractive destinations for foreign holidaymakers – a country offering an abundance of impressive experiences such as enjoying food around-the-clock.
To protect the industry, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will monitor the situation more closely. The recent measures considered by the government and the Bank of Thailand to keep the baht on a tighter leash will help ease the situation and also boost business confidence.
Somsak was visiting the Tourism Department for the second time. Recently, he went to the TAT’s office to listen to opinions, learn about barriers and discern its direction. The two offices were expected to play a more proactive role in helping to boost the country’s tourism revenue to Bt2 trillion in 2015 – a stated goal of government policy.
He said he was pleased with the current operation of the Tourism Department, even though its performance will not be perfect. The department suffers from a serious staff shortage in handling its work from suppressing illegal tour guides and maintaining tourism attractions to issuing film-shooting location permits. More than 100 people are working with the department.
Safety is also a major concern. The Budget Bureau will be asked if it’s possible to fund 60 new Tourist Police positions, Somsak said.
