CHIANG MAI – The Tourism Authority of Thailand launched a new “Experience Thailand and More” pocketbook, focusing on four travel experiences that cross borders to feature neighbouring countries.
The pocketbook distributed to all buyers and media during the ASEAN Tourism Forum focuses on travel content under four themes.
Themes cover ASEAN’s ancient kingdoms, the region’s Peranakan culture in Andaman coastal cities, adventure trails close to the Mekong River and food tourism combined with heritage cities.
The four trails and journeys
A Journey to ASEAN Ancient Kingdom’, promotes northern Thailand as a link to the historic trails in the North of ASEAN
The ASEAN Peranakan and Nature Trail, which links the Andaman coastal cities starts with Phuket’s distinctive Peranakan culture and gastronomic scene wending its way south to Malaysia.
‘Mekong Active Adventure Trail’ combines the Northeast (Isan) with Cambodia. The trail showcases Buri Ram as the sports city and is ideal for travellers who love combining sports with adventure travel experiences
The ASEAN World-Class Culinary and Heritage Cities trail highlights culinary travel experiences in major cities of the central region provinces in Thailand, along with those in Malaysia, and Singapore. The route focuses on food culture, local cuisine, world-class restaurants and top things to do in the featured cities with Bangkok as the gastronomic hub
Commenting on the pocketbook TAT’s deputy governor Tanes Petsuwan added: “As the host of the ASEAN Tourism Forum, TAT has organised post-tours that also include these ASEAN Connectivity itineraries further strengthening TAT’s commitment to promote ASEAN as a single destination.”
The ASEAN countries are collectively Thailand’s largest visitor source market in Asia. Thailand welcomed more than 9 million ASEAN visitors in 2017, with Malaysia being the largest market followed by Lao PDR and Singapore.
For 2018, TAT has set a growth target of 8% in tourism revenue from the international market based on the USD53 billion in estimated earnings achieved in 2017, he said.
In 2017, Thailand registered more than 35 million tourist arrivals and despite assurances that numbers are not the key performance indicator, officials say reaching 37.5 million visits is possible this year and by end of 2019, the country could reach 40 million.
It’s still very difficult to promote ASEAN as one or pairing between its country members. The pocket book is kept in the pocket. The digital book is kept in the computer. That’s the way it is, stay cool and let the time roll on.