TAT beckons high-end tourists from wintry Russia
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The Tourism Authority of Thailand's Moscow Office and 13 leading tour operators in Russia are planning to launch a range of promotions next month to attract high-end travellers from the cold country during this winter.
Besides Thailand’s many tourism attractions, 3,240 charter flights would be introduced, according to preliminary plans.
They would depart from 35 cities in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), including Russia’s Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Ukraine’s Kiev and Kazakhstan’s Almaty and Astana.
The flights are set to bring holidaymakers to leading leisure destinations in Thailand including Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi.
“We expect that these special winter charter flights and a range of exciting winter promotions that will be launched and promoted in September will help encourage travellers from Russia and countries in the CIS to make a trip to Thailand.
“Russia and CIS are one of the largest markets to Thailand,” TAT governor Thawatchai Arunyik said yesterday.
In the first seven months of this year, visitors from Russia increased 6.5 per cent on year to one million.
Last year, Russia ranked third among the six Asia-Pacific countries that contributed more than one million visitors, with 1.74 million arrivals, up 32.7 per cent.
The five other markets were China at 4.6 million arrivals, up 66.40 per cent, Malaysia at 3.04 million, up 19.1 per cent, Japan at 1.53 million, up 11.8 per cent, South Korea at 1.29 million, up 11.3 per cent, and India at 1.05 million, up 3.7 per cent.
“For the entire 2014, TAT expects visitor arrivals from Russia to total 1.91 million, or a 9.8-per-cent increase over 2013,” he said.
