TAT aims to increase the proportion of luxury visitors to 30% in 2016
THE TOURISM Authority of Thailand aims to raise the proportion of the country's tourism market held by luxury travellers to 30 per cent by next year, from 20 per cent currently, while soliciting the help of private companies to penetrate this lucrative ma
Thanet Petchsuwan, TAT director for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, said that after the government laid out a road map for 2016 tourism with a target to bring in more “quality” tourists, TAT planned a marketing strategy to increase the proportion of luxury tourists, particularly from Europe.
TAT’s key strategy is to emphasise “luxury Thainess” as a way to differentiate Thailand from its rivals across the world. To that end, it will select several five-to-six-star private companies to attend the International Luxury Travel Market in December in Cannes, France.
More focus will also be placed on high-end offerings during roadshows in Germany, France and England.
Selected companies that have products for this luxury group will be invited to attend the roadshows for higher efficiency in business negotiation.
According to research organisation IPK International’s “World Travel Monitor”, the luxury tourism market recorded the highest growth last year at 48 per cent, compared with general tourism growth of 24 per cent.
Last year, there were 46 million luxury trips across the world, sharing 4.6 per cent of the total travel market. The market share was 3.9 per cent in 2009. Short-trip spending last year was 750 euros (about Bt28,000) per day and long-trip spending 500 euros per day.
The biggest spenders were from the United Arab Emirates, India, Kuwait, Brazil, Australia, Canada and China.
Their daily spending averaged 1,000 euros.
The survey cited emerging markets and existing major markets experiencing economic recoveries, particularly the United States, as growing luxury-tourism markets. The US supplied the highest number of luxury tourists to other countries at 9.2 million, followed by China’s 6.9 million.
Other countries with a large number of tourists in this category are Japan, Canada and Australia.
In Europe, Britain topped the IPK survey, sending 1.5 million luxury tourists to other countries, followed by Germany and France.
The most popular destination for luxury trips was the US with 6.2 million, followed by China and Mexico.
In Europe, Germany and Italy gained popularity at 2.2 million luxury trips each, followed by France and England.
The luxury tourist group primarily used the Internet to get information and find agency services.
