Gearing up to mark its 60th anniversary in 2020, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has reaffirmed its commitment to making travel and tourism the kingdom’s most economically promising, environmentally sustainable, and culturally vibrant sector in the years to come.
Addressing the Thai tourism private sector and media after the week-long Tourism Action Plan meetings, TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn said that the completion of the auspicious 5th cycle of life will be a time for reflection on past achievements and careful management of a new era of challenges set to emerge in a highly competitive and constantly changing global and regional environment. “With the positive outcome in 2018, Thai tourism has clearly succeeded in fulfilling its mandate,” he said. “We will work even harder to maintain our brand image, preserve our competitive advantages, and ensure that the socio-economic benefits of international and domestic tourism are spread right across the country.”
The targets for 2020 are to boost total tourism revenues by 10 per cent over the projection for this year. TAT has also set clear directions to move the Thai tourism industry out of mass tourism and towards responsible tourism with an emphasis on revenue-generating quality tourists.
For the domestic market, TAT will categorise customers into various segments; such as, Gen X, Gen Y, family and millennial family, silver age, lady, first jobber, multi-gen, and corporate.
In the foreign markets, TAT will focus on specific quality markets and middle-upper income groups (Go High). It will seek first-time visitors in new markets and in the long-standing source markets (Go New Customer). It will also attempt to balance out the seasonality factor and generate more demand in the “Green Season” (Go Low).