Thailand to promote cultural experience based tourism in 2017

BANGKOK, July 12 (Xinhua) - Thai tourism authority released its marketing plan for 2017 here Monday, emphasizing the value and experience based tourism to attract more tourists from the world to visit the Kingdom.

The goal now is to move the tourism industry from offering "value for money" to "value for Experience", Yuthasak Supasorn said, governor of the Tourism authority of Thailand(TAT), adding that they will try to provide "quality tourists" with valuable and memorable experiences.

To explain the new strategy, Yuthasak took his visit to a Chinese Thai in Bangkok as an example. He went there with some tourists and said he tasted some very tasty Chinese desserts and talked with the family, which is a very unique experience to learn the culture.

Yuthasak said the TAT will encourage both domestic tourists and international tourists to explore and to understand the culture of Thailand profoundly.

He also put forward their target for 2017, which is to raise revenue earnings from domestic visitors by 10 percent to 950 billion Baht, and from international visitors by 10 percent to 1.89 trillion Baht.

The tourism industry accounts for about 10 percent of gross domestic product of Thailand while according to TAT, tourism is now recognized by Thai leaders and policymakers as "one of kingdom's most successful economic pillars".

In recent years, number of Chinese tourists is increasing rapidly, and now accounts for about 30 percent of total foreign tourists visiting the kingdom, which is the biggest share. TAT expected the number of Chinese tourists to be over 10 million as it has reached 8 million in 2015 after an increase of about 70 percent.

Earlier Monday, TAT invited its officials working in all major markets around the world to introduce the new trends for tourists from these countries to Thai tourism practitioners in its market briefing 2017 report.

TAT officials working in 5 major cities of Chinese mainland, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kunming and Chengdu, said they are trying to attract more luxury tourists with an annual income of over 60 thousand U.S. dollars to the Kingdom.

They said the Thai government is promoting golf, marathon, medical and wellness services, as well as providing convenience for self-drive tourists and paying more attention to female tourists to achieve its goal.

The officials also encouraged Thai tourism practitioners to learn the Chinese culture and language to gear up for the increasing Chinese tourists, 60 percent of which now comes as fully independent traveler, and also asked them to pay attention to Wechat and other social media that used by many Chinese in daily life.

Officials working in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, United States, Italy and in middle east respectively introduced traits of tourists from different countries and the new travelling trend there to tourism practitioners.

These officials said they are trying to attract more female tourists, more Muslim tourists, more young entrepreneurs, more families, as well as more couples to have their wedding and honey moon here.

The official working in Turkey also mentioned the image of the kingdom there in Turkey is quite bad and needs to be improved.

The tourism authority arranged a market briefing every year to let tourism practitioners know about the new trends of tourists from different countries.

Yuthasak emphasized in his speech that Thai government and private sectors should work together to achieve the goal of a sustainable tourism for Thailand.

However, safety may still be a challenge for them as several incidents this year such as a speedboat crash last month, have caused death of foreign tourists.

TAT officials said in the briefing that safety and security need to be improved. Enditem