Arrivals may not meet forecast

“The private sector initially believed that the lifting of martial law would win a lot of tourists |back to the country. But the situation has now again returned to difficulty. If the air safety problem remains unsolved, the tourism target will need to be revised down,” said Ittirit Kinglake, president of the Tourism Council of Thailand.
Thailand might not achieve this year’s projection of 29 million arrivals and inbound revenue of Bt140 billion, due to the current air travel safety issues raised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
Thai tourism has been tested by many trials through the years such as the Sumatra tsunami, airport closures, the flood of a few years ago and the political crisis last year.
During the first quarter of this year, international tourists |filed back to the country, with |7.8 million visitors welcomed, up |23 per cent year on year.
Ittirit said the Russian market would continue to slow until next year as the economy there had failed to improve.
Vacationers from other key markets such as Japan, South Korea and China may suspend their plans to travel to Thailand for fear of flying.
However, the council is confident that domestic tourism will hit the target of 150 million trips.
Chanin Donavanik, chief executive officer of Dusit International, said many hotels cannot raise their room rates for the high season in the last quarter of this year due to the global economic instability.
“Thailand should perform better than this. It’s because of many problems from the economic situation outside to internal problems,” he added.
Charamporn Jotikasthira, president of Thai Airways International Plc, said that last quarter, THAI began to drop some loss-making routes, such as Johannesburg in January, while more routes in Europe and Asia will be cut this year.
In February, the carrier revised its summer schedule and announced cost-cutting measures, followed in April by revising its route expansion plan especially for China and South Korea, due to the safety issue.
Its average passenger-load factor in the first quarter was 76 per cent, up from 68.9 per cent in the same quarter last year.
The improvement is expected to continue throughout this year and next, which should help the company return to profit in early 2017.
One of the major factors helping to increase revenue is the price of jet fuel, which on average has been 20 per cent lower than last year’s level, enabling the airline to save about Bt10 billion to date.
THAI expects its average load factor to exceed 76 per cent in the current quarter, thanks largely to flights added during the Songkran Festival.