Tough times ahead for tourism?
- Published: 27/05/2010 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: Horizons
Siripakorn Cheawsamoot has the onerous task of promoting Thailand as a tourist destination in the UK, Ireland and South Africa at a time of extraordinary difficulty both at home and abroad. And while the global financial crisis is still causing a great deal of pain for many Europeans, Siripakorn is confident that Thailand will continue to be a popular holiday spot for people from that continent.
London-based TAT executive Siripakorn Cheawsamoot.
Interviewed before the recent violent denouement of the UDD protest in central Bangkok, the senior TAT staffer noted that while demand in the UK for Thai vacations remained strong during the first quarter of 2010, it will be of vital importance to ensure that lines of communication remain open.
"We need to keep our trade partners informed and updated about the situation [in Bangkok], sending press-release updates and useful contact numbers which they can pass on to their passengers. When we consider patterns of travel to Thailand, Bangkok is not always the major destination, but a stopover en route to the North or the South. Therefore, when passengers called their tour operator they were able to simply change their itinerary to incorporate more time on the beach, for example, keeping the number of cancellations to an absolute minimum."
The political unrest in Thailand looks far from being resolved; what strategy is TAT using to reassure potential visitors? If the trouble continues, do you think our tourism industry will be badly hit?
TAT UK is in regular contact with its trade partners, monitoring the effect on Thailand sales. Reports to date from key tour-operator partners show very little effect; Thailand is still selling very well. Tour operators have received only a small number of calls of concern and in 90 per cent of the cases passengers are still travelling, but perhaps altering their itineraries or their choice of hotel. Thailand offers so much variety with a large number of destinations to choose from. Since most itineraries only include a couple of nights in Bangkok, it's been easy for tour operators to amend itineraries, adding in a new destination or extending passengers' stays in their [existing] resort, keeping the number of cancellations to a minimum. Bangkok is a vast city and the demonstrations are limited to just a few areas which TAT and the tour operators have been careful to advise tourists to stay away from. Keen to keep tourists in Bangkok, tour operators have also been moving foreign visitors to alternative hotels away from the protesters.
According to news reports, extra government funds have been allocated to the Tourism Authority of Thailand; will the UK office benefit from this? If so, in what way?
An additional budget has not yet been approved for TAT UK, but if we do receive extra budget we'll use it for "Partners on Demand" activities, supporting trade partners of ours in September, the beginning of the peak booking season in the UK and Ireland. The money might also be spent on activities such as direct mail [campaigns] and classified advertising.
What are your short-term and long-term strategies?
Our marketing and PR activities continue as normal. Since January we have sent almost 40 journalists to Thailand. Our Golden Jubilee celebrations continued as normal in March. We've been running a nationwide TV and radio campaign in the UK since January which has sparked much interest in Thailand. Our strategies for 2010-2011 will involve a greater level of "Partners on Demand" tactical marketing, supporting the trade with funds to run dedicated Thailand campaigns in order to boost sales and gain incremental passengers. We will focus more on emotional marketing through more widespread branding campaigns promoting "Amazing Thailand Amazing Value", which has been extremely successful to date. We will also be using more digital media, working with more online tour operators, using social-media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr and our own tourismthailand.co.uk website. We plan to interact more with British youths, too, by creating a fun viral campaign.
What's your forecast for the rest of the year?
We're very optimistic. 2009 was a difficult year for the travel and tourism industry, but Thailand finished the year almost five per cent up on tourist arrivals compared to 2008, a result of which we are extremely proud. The first quarter of 2010 has been very strong but we expect a slowdown in bookings after the Easter break. There are several factors that will affect travel from April onwards. Firstly, the UK general election; a time when citizens will be more cautious about spending disposable income until a new government and its policies are announced. Secondly, the World Cup, which takes place in June and the first two weeks of July, will mean that people will be either travelling to South Africa or staying at home to follow their national team [via TV coverage]. Finally, the great British weather! If the UK has a good summer, hot and sunny, coupled with the increased marketing for what are called "staycations" [domestic tourism], more people may be inclined to holiday at home in the British Isles. In September this year we'll be launching our "Amazing Thailand, Amazing Value" tactical marketing campaign.
Your area of responsibility extends to South Africa; surely this must be difficult to oversee given that you're based so far away?
We have excellent support from our Team Thailand partners in South Africa, who include other government agencies such as the Royal Thai Embassy. We have established a good working partnership with the travel trade and media in South Africa over a number of years and we enjoy a fruitful relationship with them. The time difference of just one hour means that I and my marketing team are always available during working hours to answer calls and emails. We travel across as much as we can, at least quarterly, and I attend special ad hoc events such as the recent launch of Thai Airways flights from Johannesburg to Bangkok. We plan to do more road shows which will allow us to meet more people in the travel trade on each trip and to map out our marketing campaigns farther in advance.
If you have comments to share, please feel free to email yvonneb@bangkokpost.co.th
About the author
- Writer: Patcharin Wongsatien
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