TAT plans virtual marketing strategy
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Agency targets growing numbers of Internet users worldwide
The Tourism Authority of Thailand is preparing “virtual marketing” to capture the increasing numbers of online and digital users worldwide.
“It is a global trend that everyone is now using the Internet. Tourists require the most up-to-date virtual data and information on destinations before booking,” TAT governor Thawatchai Arunyik said at the World Travel Mart in London this week.
He added that virtual information and digital material about attractions could be reached by tourists around the clock, seven days a week.
He said virtual marketing was being planned for all of TAT’s channels: its website, Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Line, and other social-media platforms. The agency plans to run intensive virtual marketing next year, with many new products transformed into digital format.
TAT is set to run its “Discover Thainess” campaign in 2015, as part of its aim to attract 28 million tourists from around the world. Part of the marketing strategy is to focus on young travellers or those who are social-media users.
“I don’t believe that people will purchase a product without testing it. Tourism is the same: Tourists will consume a lot of information before buying,” Thawatchai said.
He said many other countries and territories had already got into digital marketing, such as South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. These places are putting updates of their products and activities online in order to achieve maximum engagement with tourists.
Meanwhile, business operators are linking their products with national tourism organisations with attractive offers.
World players
Among international tourism business players, Starwood created a Google Glass application that allows users to make bookings and look up directions to its hotels. It also has an app that turns the Apple Watch into a room key.
Expedia, in the meantime, is preparing a wearable-technology system for which it expects a phenomenal growth in users worldwide, from 9 million in 2013 to 180 million in 2016.
Moreover, Hotels.com has initiated a new trick called “braggies” – travel pictures intended to inspire envy on social media to attract customers.
Simon Press, senior director of World Travel Mart, said braggies were another example of how social media were now seen by many big travel brands as mainstream activities that offer new ways to engage with guests.
“It was only a matter of time before travel companies jumped on the trend of selfies to engage and encourage loyalty and repeat bookings,” Press said.
In Britain, Big Bus, an open-top sightseeing provider, recently signed a deal with Viator, an Internet platform for attractions and activities, as it wants to expand its online capability.
This week, the Seychelles Tourism Board launched a revamped version of its website including 45 new 360-degree virtual tours of cultural spots and beaches.
In Thailand, Nora Resorts and Hotels, which is run by Vorasit Ponkumpunt, predicted that the increase of free individual tourists and the fast growth of technology would force operators to focus more on online and social marketing to gain business from digital users.
He said online transactions would change the Thai tourism structure very soon and operators were urged to prepare for such changes.
