JTB and TAT organise fam trips

BANGKOK, 2 September 2010 – JTB, a leading tour wholesaler in Japan is working with the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s East Asia division to send retail travel staff to Thailand on familiarisations trips.

The programme will host hundreds of so-called frontline travel staff, all working for the Japan’s largest outbound organisation, on all-expenses paid trips to Thailand, .

According to TAT’s International public relations division, the project is in response to lack of confidence in the Japanese travel market as potential travellers show concern about their safety.

An official said that by co-operating with JTB, travel staff would see for themselves the true situation and this would help them to advise customers based on first-hand information obtained during their visits.

Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ most recent statistics indicate that Japanese tourist arrivals dropped 24.35% for May and 11.01% for June compared with the same months last year.

TAT officials said front liners working for 29 companies in Japan and Asia Pacific, working under the JTB brand, would be able to survey tourism products and routes that could be promoted in the Japanese market.

They will spend two days on a tour starting in Bangkok and including an up-country destination.

Tourist arrival data for Thailand showed Japanese tourists ranked second only to Malaysians in volume.