Thailand is now so popular for holidays that almost 35 million
foreign tourists -- equivalent to half the country’s population -- are
expected this year.
As the influx gets harder to manage, the government is shifting
strategy. It’s now targeting a minimum increase in tourism revenue of
about 5 percent annually instead of a particular number of visitors,
Tourism Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul said. That means encouraging
longer stays and higher daily spending, a mix the typical Australian
holidaymaker exemplifies, she said.
“Maybe they’re the ones who are like: this is my time -- I eat, I
shop, and I eat, and I shop," Kobkarn, 56, said in an interview.
Australian visitors were among the top 10 biggest spenders in terms
of per capita daily expenditure last year, forking out 5,831 baht
($172), Tourism Ministry data shows. Their average length of stay of
almost 14 days was the highest in that group. Some nationalities take
even longer holidays but tend to be more parsimonious. British tourists,
for instance, stayed for just over 18 days on average while spending
4,376 baht daily.
Tourism is a bright spot for Thailand’s economy, which
faces challenges such as political uncertainty and sluggish consumer
demand. The sector makes up about 18 percent of gross domestic product,
Kobkarn said in the interview in Chiang Mai last month.
“We no longer have a target for number of tourists,” she said. “We
shouldn’t go beyond the limit that we can cope. But there’s no statistic
on that yet. When people say that Phuket may be too crowded, or Bangkok
is too crowded, we have to make sure that we are introducing new
destinations too.”
Arrivals from overseas more than doubled in the past decade, powered
by a surge in Chinese holidaymakers who contributed 28 percent of 1.6
trillion baht in foreign tourism receipts in 2016.
Affordability is one reason why Thailand has usurped Malaysia as
Southeast Asia’s most popular destination, but Kobkarn said the nation
must focus on quality as well as cost to tackle emerging competitive
threats from the likes of Myanmar and Vietnam.
Quality doesn’t just mean targeting wealthy tourists as Thailand
needs travelers on a variety of budgets, Kobkarn said. Instead, it
refers to offering good value experiences that encourage return visits,
increase the average length of stay and bolster daily spending per head,
she said.
Visitors from the Middle East are the biggest per capita daily
spenders, according to the Tourism Ministry data. Chinese tourists stood
out for above-average expenditure and sheer number of arrivals -- 8.8
million, dwarfing other nationalities and making China the most
important single country for tourism receipts.
Thailand’s years-long tourism boom slowed somewhat in recent months.
That’s partly because of terrorist bombings in resort towns in August
last year and a clampdownby the military government on some operators of
large Chinese tour groups, which were judged to generate insufficient
local spending.
Arrivals are likely to pick up in the second half of 2017 as security
concerns fade and Chinese visitors embrace independent travel over
package tours, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
That signals more strain for the country’s airports, some of which
are already stretched beyond capacity. State-run Airports of Thailand
Pcl is planning to invest about $6 billion over a decade to try to ease
the bottlenecks.
Even as Kobkarn tries to focus on revenue targets rather than visitor
numbers, arrivals are projected to climb, whether drawn by the allure
of white-sand beaches in resorts such as Krabi, the gastronomic delights
of Bangkok or the perennially notorious sex capital Pattaya.
The Bank of Thailand forecasts 34.9 million tourist arrivals this
year, a climb of about 7 percent from 2016, and 37.3 million in 2018.
That’s projected to help Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy expand
3.5 percent in 2017 and 3.7 percent next year.
Thailand needs to be a quality tourism destination since a range of
factors can prevent it being seen as the cheapest, such as rising wages
or an appreciating exchange rate, Kobkarn said.
“We’re working very hard for people not to think only of the cost,”
she said. “We’re not the best. We still have many negative things. But
we’re very sincere in improving ourselves.”
Source - TheJakartaPost
