TAT to Revitalise Thai Tourism Towards Sustainable Growth

Bangkok, Thailand, July 21, 2022 / TRAVELINDEX The Tourism Authority of Thailand has announced the marketing plan for 2023 that will continue this year’s goal to revitalise and transform Thai tourism, while placing greater emphasis on the recovery of the tourism sector towards stronger and sustainable, more responsible, more digital and more inclusive tourism growth.

Staged in a hybrid meeting format, the annual TAT Action Plan for 2023 conference was presided over by H.E. Mr. Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, Thailand’s Minister of Tourism and Sports. Also present at the event were Dr. Thosaporn Sirisumphand, TAT’s Chairman of the Board, and officials and figures from the Thai public and private tourism sectors, as well as members of the media.

Mr. Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT Governor, said, “TAT sees 2023 as a year of a new beginning for Thai tourism. Hence, we have outlined our marketing strategy for next year adhering to the TAT’s Corporate Plan 2023-2027, which aims to heighten the TAT’s position as the strategic leader in driving Thailand towards experience-based and sustainable tourism.

“TAT is committed to help revitalise and transform Thai tourism under our three strategic objectives, which are: to ‘drive demand’ for meaningful travel, to ‘shape supply’ by developing a new tourism ecosystem, and to ‘thrive for excellence’ by making the TAT a data-driven organisation. We believe this will heighten our goal for Thailand to achieve high value and sustainable tourism growth,” Mr. Yuthasak added.

TAT will continue to use the “Visit Thailand Year 2022-2023: Amazing New Chapters” as the communication strategies for the international market. Thailand will continue to be promoted as a world-class destination that offers something for everyone under the ‘From A-Z: Amazing Thailand Has It All’ concept. This will be showcased alongside the kingdom’s 5F, 4M soft-power foundations; namely, Food, Film, Fashion, Festival, Fight, Music, Museum, Master, and Meta.

Particularly for long-haul international market, TAT recognises 2023 as the ‘time is the new currency’ era. Therefore, emphasis will be placed on promoting Thailand as a year-round destination for health and wellness aficionados, families with kids, active seniors, and remote workers / teleworkers through co-promotions with leading brands. Strategic marketing activities will be launched in new source markets, including Saudi Arabia and the USA’s large secondary cities through partnerships with the airlines.

For the short-haul international market, TAT has outlined ‘The Great Resumption’ under the ‘2Qs, 5News’ strategy. The ‘2Qs’ are ‘Quick Win’ to drive back the demands of tourists and ‘Quality’ to achieve more numbers of revisits and higher trip expenditure. The ‘5News’ include ‘New Segments’ with growth potential, ‘New Areas’ for source tourist markets, ‘New Partners’ in existing markets, ‘New Infrastructure’ relating to travel and tourism, and ‘New Way’ of travel experiences that will focus on responsible tourism. TAT will also promote all points of entry into Thailand, via land, water, and air with an aim to reinstate more than 80% of the regional air capacity in 2019.

In addition, more collaborative partnerships will be formed between TAT and the airlines to help boost the international tourism business by increasing the seating capacity to Thailand. Initially, this will focus on key source markets with no travel restrictions to drive the travel demand of high-disposable income groups (Millennials, Gen-X, and Silver-Age People), hyper-personalisation groups (health and wellness, sports tourism, and responsible tourism), and new segments (digital nomads and remote workers / teleworkers).

For the domestic market, TAT will focus on increasing the travel frequency of domestic tourists by promoting Thailand as a year-round destination under the ‘REAL’ strategy: Responsible Tourism, Extra-ordinary Experience, Avantgarde Marketing and Less for more Economy. Highlights of each of the five regions of Thailand will be promoted, including nostalgic experiences in the North for Multi-Gen Families, ‘Trend C2’ innovative routes in the Central Region for Gen-Y and Gen-Z, culinary and luxury tourism offers in the Each for high-income Gen-Y and Millennial Families, Dharma – Nature – Culture routes in the Northeast for Gen-Y and employed people, and inclusive responsible tourism in the South. Moreover, TAT will promote secondary cities up and down Thailand.

TAT has formulated the marketing plan for 2023 adhering to the Thai government’s Bio-Circular-Green or BCG Economy Model, which is conforming to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The BCG model is being used to revive the tourism industry with the aim of safe, inclusive, and sustainable travel.

Moreover, to ‘thrive for excellence’ by making TAT a data-driven organisation, TAT will use the Thailand Tourism Virtual Mart (TTVM) as the key online B2B platform for Thai tourism business and international tourism operators.

“For 2023, TAT expects Thailand to generate a total tourism revenue of 1.73 trillion Baht with 970 billion Baht from the international market and 760 billion Baht from the domestic market (for base case scenario) and 2.38 trillion Baht with 1.50 trillion Baht from the international market and 880 billion Baht from the domestic market (for best case scenario). This represents about 80% of Thailand’s tourism performance in 2019,” Mr. Yuthasak concluded.