Fudging allegations flatly denied

BANGKOK, 2 February 2012: Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ Department of Tourism hits out a critics saying its international and domestic tourist arrivals figure are reliable and follow the standards set by the United Nation’s World Tourism Organisation.

In response to constant travel industry criticism that its data lacked credibility, TTR Weekly forwarded questions to a Department of Tourism official who asked not to be identified.

Officially, the department declined to be drawn into a debate on data collection.

The department official confirmed that all of its data is derived from Immigration Bureau statistics collected at over 30 border checkpoints across the country.

The ministry does not collect independent data.

Data collected from the immigration bureau at Suvarnabhumi Airport represents 60% to 70% of all arrivals.

Addressing specific complaints on reliability of data, the official said the process was no different than was employed by all member countriess of the UNWTO.

“We follow the UNWTO procedures and condition based on the criteria that the foreign tourist passing through a border checkpoint is not coming to work in Thailand or is categorised as a resident.”

The source confirmed that the data does not include UN officials, ambassadors, and airline cabin attendants and flight crews.

The Department of Tourism has hired Excellent Business Management Company Limited to process the raw data from the Immigration Bureau. It collates the percentages, market and nationality breakdown.

In an on-going programme, teams hired by the department interview a sampling of 2% of each nationality identified in the tourist arrival data. Interviews are conducted at the Airport of Thailand’s six airports including Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang, Chiang Mai, Hat Yai, Phuket, and Mae Fah Luang-Chiang Rai. Interviews are done at tourist attractions to collect behaviour, length of stay, and spending per head information.

From these interviews , the department arrives at estimate on revenue for tourism in Thailand.

The interview method is also used to estimate Thai outbound trends at those airports and border check points to collect its tourism movement information.

On the domestic front Thai tourists are interviewed at tourist attractions in 77 provinces based on the criteria that the person interviewed comes from another province.

In an on the record interview, the Department of Tourism director general, Supol Sripan, said Bt30 million will be spent ( overall budget Bt2,624 million) to tighten up and build depth into statistical collection.

“The project focuses on collecting tourist expenditure, number of tourist at accommodation facilities and building data on average room prices,”

Mr Supol added: “This data should benefit tour operators to build a tourism marketing plan or promotions.”

It will take three years to get to that point.

In 2008, the Department of Tourism took over the tourist data from the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

However, criticism of the department’s figures has been constant. On this website, readers have blogged data stories challenging the accuracy of national statistics on tourism. The Ministry of Tourism has so far declined comment.