New governor readies for recovery

Thailand’s tourism industry will reap recovery this year according to TAT governor, Suraphon Svetasreni, who outlined his marketing objectives at a media briefing yesterday.

“We expect the market will recover this year so we must adapt our strategy to be prepared.”

His first objective is to work with “healthy” markets that can be tapped through local media, joint activities with airlines and travel agents. Markets that he claims are healthy include Asean, South Asia, France, UK, Netherlands, Iran, Kuwait and Jordan.

In static or “mid-way markets,” the objective is to maintain market share mainly through trade promotion. Static markets include Oceania, Scandinavia, Germany, Russia and Vietnam.

Finally, he identifies markets in  deep decline that need heavy public relations campaigns, mega familiarisation trips and road shows to rekindle interest. They include Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore, United of Arabs Emirates, and North America.

The new governor claims if there are no unprecedented negative factors, he can achieve a target of 15 million to 15.5 million international arrivals and tourism receipts of Bt600 billion this year.  His optimism reflects official Ministry of Tourism and Sports forecasts that are largely politically driven. Few if any private organisations or trade associations would subscribe to that view.

The  overall  budget allotted to the TAT by the government for the fiscal year 2010 (1 October 2009 to 30 September 2010) was set at Bt4,550 million. Within that allocation, Bt2,849 million was set aside for projects and promotions representing a decline of 15.21% over last year, while the management budget of Bt1,700 million has increased 9.26%. The budget for international markets stands at Bt2,490 million, while domestic market has a budget of Bt1,328 million.

Mr Suraphon claims 2009 will deliver close to 14 million visitors or an estimated 4% increase over a disappointing 2008.

“The improvement is mainly due to the government’s stimulus programmes especially marketing activities with private sector, visa fee waivers and the reduction of landing fee,” said Mr Suraphon.

However, his breakdown or forecast of how 2009 will close includes mainly negative performances.

The 2009 assessment:

Asean down 1% to 3.9 million arrivals;

Northeast Asia down 15% to 3.8 million;

Europe up 0.8% to 4.12 million;

Americas down 9.5% to 800,000;

South Asia up 15% to 900,000;

Oceania down 7% to 730,000;

Middle East down 4.6% to 250,000;

Africa down 2.3% to 100,000.