BANGKOK, 19 October 2018: In a major drive to promote travel from neighbouring countries during the last quarter, the Tourism Authority Thailand has teamed up with AirAsia, Bangkok Airways and VietJet Air to offer cheap fares.
The so called ‘Mega Deal to Thailand…Travel Is a Big Deal” encourages tourists from ASEAN countries, specifically Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, to take advantage of special fares.
Reservations are open until 31 December.
With the exception of Myanmar all the targeted markets are strong suppliers of tourist arrivals for Thailand. Malaysia is the second largest market after China during the first nine months of this year supplying 2.87 million.
TAT is confident the campaign can boost travel from ASEAN neighbours to ensure the country closes 2018 at around 37.5 million.
The campaign, ‘Mega Deal to Thailand…Travel Is a Big Deal,’ claims to be a proactive campaign to stimulate travel to Thailand. The three airlines have cooperated with TAT to encourage both tourists and businessmen to visit the ‘land of smiles’ and experience the new shades of Thailand’s tourism.
At the launch event, AirAsia said it was “pleased to contribute to the growth of Thailand tourism with this new campaign… It will stimulate travel especially from ASEAN countries in line with TAT’s current campaign ‘Open to the New Shades.”
But the reality was quite different when we followed through on the invite to catch a fare bargain. It turned into a false trail.
For starters, AsiaAsia’s commitment on the mega deals ended 14 October after just a week. Hardly, enough time for the campaign to gain traction with consumers.
But the other two airlines are keeping the booking window open until 31 December and their networks feature routes from most major ASEAN cities to Thailand’s popular tourist destinations. Our hopes were high that we could snare a great fare out of any airports in the six ASEAN nations.
Just a couple of questions come to mind. What’s the deal and just how special are Mega fares? How much is the discount off regular commercial fares? Or could it be just window dressing for fares that are already in place under different descriptions.
The joint promotion announcement provided links to each of the partner airlines but offered no hints on what kind of discounts are on offer and how they differ from what the airline’s offer to passengers on a regular basis.
We checked out the Meg Deal offer on Bangkok Airways and Vietjet.
Bangkok Airways has a track record for confusing web visitors with fares that fail to live up to the email blast promise.
We clicked on the link and reached a page appropriately named “Mega Deals to Thailand,” which states the deal is available for travel on seven routes from six countries — Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.
There are two booking boxes “Beach Time” and “Go Samui” that should have fare details. When you click on any of the boxes, the message reads; “access to this promotion is available for users in some countries only.” End of the search, not a hint of a fare offer.
We tried using a VPN to mask the IP address, but with the same result. The message halted our search, leaving us to guess the identify of “some countries” where this fare was available. Obviously you have to be physically resident in one of the countries to track down a fare. Again Bangkok Airways illustrates the unfriendly logic of its website management.
In contrast, the link to Vietjet opens on the airline’s homepage packed with special offers, but none are identified as a “Mega Deal to Thailand. By now we recognise the Mega Deal campaign title has disappeared into thin air.
We can live with that outcome, so we tap in travel dates for a roundtrip Ho Chi Min City to Phuket fare and hey presto we have a fare of THB4,458.02.
Unlike Bangkok Airways there are no messages that exclude you from buying a roundtrip fare out of Ho Chi Minh City to Phuket. It suggests that just one of the three partners, Vietjet, remains seriously in play to help you catch a Mega Deal fare and the campaign is only one week old.
It is probably worth asking why bother to promote a campaign across the region’s media, without offering a single example of a Mega Deal fare or checking that links work all the six country markets?
Remaining campaign partners (19 Oct)
Bangkok Airways: https://goo.gl/JpWBmf
Book now from today – 31 December 2018
Travel from today – 31 December 2018
Vietjet Air: https://goo.gl/LQ2n2s
Book now from today – 31 December 2018
Travel from today – 31 December 2018
