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Thailand signs MOU with Baidu to make travel easier for Chinese tourists

Xinhua, June 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

The tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) signed a memorandum of understanding on tourism cooperation with Chinese internet giant Baidu here Monday, in a bid to make travel easier for Chinese tourists visiting the kingdom.

In the signing ceremony, Baidu unveiled the newly upgraded Baidu Map, which is a popular mapping app in China and now also available for Chinese visiting Thailand.

As soon as Chinese visitors arrived, there would be a push notification from the Baidu Map on their smart phones welcoming them, said Zhang Jing, Marketing Consultant of Baidu.

With data from TAT, the mapping app in Chinese language can help Chinese tourists visiting Thailand in finding the location of tourist attractions, restaurants, products and services.

Baidu, on the other hand, will provide information on tourist trends and characteristics for TAT.

Srisuda Wanapinyosak, deputy governor for Asia and South Pacific marketing of TAT, said TAT and Baidu share the same goal of helping Chinese tourists here, so they decided to cooperate.

According to Srisuda and Paul Chen, general manager of Baidu Thailand, more and more Chinese tourists chose to come by themselves instead of coming with tour groups, which means the mapping app will be useful for many.

TAT and Baidu will work together on the "Amazing Romance in Thailand" in July by compiling the information of locations related to love and romance, and also on the "Women's Journey" project in August, during which information of shops and businesses that participate in will be provided on the app.

The duo will also will work together on a "Smart Guide" project. Chinese visitors can use the mapping app on their smart phones to scan the QR-code at some tourist attractions to hear their history and story in Chinese language.

"TAT aims to restructure the market by expanding to high-end tourists from various cities of China. This cooperation will allow TAT to reach this target group directly and rapidly," said Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT governor.

Although Baidu Map is currently in Chinese, the company also plans to attract local users in the future.

"Our first step is to provide our mapping service for Chinese tourists, then for Chinese Thai and finally for Thai people with a Thai version of the app in the future," said Dangen She or Daniel, general manager of Baidu Global Maps product.

Baidu Map, accounting for about 70 percent of mapping market in China, has extended its mapping service to about 50 countries and regions outside Chinese Mainland since the Chinese new year in 2016, said Zhang Jing, Marketing Consultant of Baidu, adding that the information on the app will be updated regularly.

According to a statement from organizers of the event, there are 500 million Baidu Map users now. Endit