Soft-spoken TAT Governor Suraphon Svetasreni speaks about Thailand’s tourism perspectives. Emotions, green tourism and the sense of being Thai are on his agenda.
We are approaching the end of the year. How would you evaluate the tourism year for Thailand?
Suraphon Svetasreni– We can already confirm that 2012 marked one of the highest achievement of Thai tourism related to Thailand’s economy. We experienced this year a slowdown in exports due to the global crisis affecting many countries. However, tourism continues to progress strongly, helping our country to soften potential economic problems. We will probably overpass the 20.5 million international arrivals this year. This is a great effort especially as we depend more than any other country in this region of arrivals from Europe, which represent roughly 40% of our total tourism revenues.
How do you explain this success?
S.S.- The current government puts tourism as a priority industry for our country’s benefit and it really shows effects. Our campaign Miracle Year Amazing Thailand found a very good echo and helped to further strengthen cooperation efforts between the private sector, TAT and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports to achieve this performance. Our growth over the years is even more remarkable that we have been affected in the last years by various negative factors such as flooding or political crisis. But I believe that our resilience came also from the perception abroad of being a welcoming service friendly country with a good value for money…
Are low prices not a handicap in the longer term?
S.S.- I must admit that we struggle to raise prices due to an oversupply, especially of hotels in Bangkok. However, we need more to concentrate our marketing efforts into bringing higher spending tourists. TAT needs to work with the private sector to identify the right markets to the right product. Middle-and top-end markets are the ones we look for and we must venture more into niche, individual tailored travellers. They are the ones who are willing to pay more to get what they are really expecting for their holiday. We can also raise prices in hotels if we continue to upgrade the product itself.
How do you identify those niche higher-spending markets?
S.S– We use a lot digital media to watch out consumption behaviours. We put a lot of emphasis on digital media markets by creating tailor-made products which emphasize Thailand’s diversity. This is the way we identify and launched new products such as meditation travel, cycling in Thai countryside, green tourism etc… We are also looking more at generating emotions through our campaigns. This is the way people will remember their holiday, talk about it and come back…
Generating emotions? How can it be achieved?
S.S.– We are looking for our campaign 2012-2013 at emphasizing more the idea of Thainess. What is the essence of our Thai culture, our Thai way of life and how can visitors be part of it. will then be able to distinguish ourselves from our neighbours. We share many common values and landscapes with Cambodia, Laos or Myanmar. But Thainess defines our uniqueness compared to our neighbours.
Is the “green” revolution really well understood by Thai tourism and people today?
S.S. I think that people realizes today that we really need to take care of our environment. We unfortunately went through a period of growth linked mostly to high consumerism. But we see in surveys that travellers are looking increasingly to green or sustainable places for holidays. It became part of their choice for a destination. We have to continue to emphasize the need to become greener and greener. We created already travel awards and green certifications to reward the best practices of the industry. We know need to train more local communities, talk more to the industry to really put into practice green behaviour through a more sustainable driven education. We must learn from our past mistakes and find new ways to promote destinations. At TAT, we think that some destinations such as Nan, Phrae, Uttaradit are marvelous green paradises for visitors. However, we must now find the right balance to bring tourism but keep the genuine life of those places. Because these paradises are so fragile…
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
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