Thai tourists should think of home first, says travel body
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The Association of Domestic Travel (ADT) has urged the government to launch more aggressive campaigns to encourage Thai tourists to think first about holidays in their homeland before visiting such countries as Japan.
The ADT wants this action taken before Japan relaxes its visa applications for Thai travellers in August, one of its summer months.
The association says it expects 10-15 per cent of Thai holidaymakers will be attracted to turn their eyes to Japan, at the cost to Thai tourism. The scrapping of visa applications will make travel to Japan much easier, according to ADT president Yutthachai Soonthronrattanavate.
It projects that 400,000 Thais will travel to Japan this year.
To stem this outflow of tourists, the government will have to stimulate Thai sentiment to travel here, mainly through tour agencies. It should introduce promotional campaigns to local tourists similar to those of consumer products such as green tea, which offer discounted services and also lucky draws for big prizes such as cars, Yutthachai said.
Recently, the Tourism Council of Thailand asked the government to offer tax reductions for local tourists by allowing them to claim a maximum of Bt15,000 on their income-tax returns. This was also aimed at narrowing a gap between tourism revenue contributed by local and foreign tourists. This year, local-tourism revenue is projected at Bt530 billion, while Bt1.18 trillion is spent by foreign tourists.
The evidence is clear that Thailand is an attractive market in Asean, reflecting the bloc’s higher purchasing power, Yutthachai said. Japan also gives this visa privilege to Malaysia. He said mainland China and Taiwan might extend a free-visa offer to Thailand as well.
As a result, the Thai government should prepare for the changing tourism landscape. It should not only promote Thai travel within Thailand, but look for ways to increase the number of tourists from Japan as well, Yutthachai said.
