Tourism industry players suggest how to improve Kingdom's competitiveness
Experts from the airline, hotel, and travel industries have proposed initiatives to improve country's ability to compete in the growing global tourism market.
Speaking at a tourism conference on “Imagine Thailand 2020” hosted by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), representatives of businesses involved in tourism made several proposals with high hopes of bringing in more tourists as well as increasing the country’s competitiveness in the long term.
Patee Sarasin, chief executive officer of low-cost airline Nok Air, urged the government to make the whole country a duty-free destination, which should attract a lot more visitors.
“Some people might be against this idea, but this is the right way to attract people to come and shop here,” he said.
He added that all stakeholders could achieve their goals if they focused on the right target segments.
On the same panel, William Heinecke, chairman and CEO of Minor International Hotel Group, said Thailand could remain an attractive destination for international tourists as the country featured a variety of tourism products and services.
However, he said, the country need to improve international air connectivity of major tourist destinations such as Pattaya and Hua Hin.
To reduce tourists’ travel time, the government should upgrade U-tapao Airport near Pattaya and Hua Hin Airport in the west to international airports so that people could fly directly to those areas without going through Bangkok, he said. Tourists from key markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong currently were taking more than four hours or maybe half a day to reach Pattaya and Hua Hin, and that was too much time.
Heinecke said Indonesia and the Philippines suffered from poor air-transport infrastructure. Thailand can learn from the failures of those countries.
Kanok Abhiradee, former president of Thai Airways International, said the country should not ignore low season, as that period could still be promoted to lure foreign visitors.
"In the past, THAI used to deny low season for two years without doing nothing that time. It caused the airline lost many travelers," said Kanok.
He urged tourism bodies to rethink about low season and turn that slow period into an opportunity by offering attractive packages and promotions.
According to PATA statistics, the top tourist sources for Thailand last year were China, Malaysia, Russia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, India, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia. A total of 24.7 million foreigners visited Thailand with estimated total spending of Bt1.13 trillion.
Domestic travel totalled 136.2 million person-trips with spending of Bt680 billion.
The revenue earned from foreign visitors in January this year soared to Bt124 billion, an increase of 7.84 per cent from the same month last year of Bt115 billion.
The Department of Tourism estimates that Thailand will receive a total of 29 million tourists by the end of 2015, with expected foreign-exchange earnings of Bt1.4 trillion. Domestically, Thai tourists will have 139 person-trips, with estimated spending of Bt800 billion.
