JTBF Mission to Thailand 2010 (2/01-2/04)

Visit to Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT)

Kazuo Kikkawa (Vice Chairman, JTBF)

A summary of Governor Suraphon’s message:

• Welcome to TAT. I would appreciate JTBF members have a good understanding of Thailand and visit us every year.
• I was assigned to the current position just in January. I position Japan as the most important country. Visitors from Japan exceeded one million every past year. 2009 was a difficult year. In the first half, it dropped 30% but recovered towards the end of year, just reaching one million.
• We promote increase of visitors from Japan. On the other hand, we also pay attention to Japanese residents in Thailand. According to information of Japanese Embassy, they count so many as 46,000 and are increasing every year. They have a precise knowledge of Thailand and, when they return back to Japan, are expected to advertise Thailand to Japanese society. We must take an advantage of their influence.
• Due to the recent financial difficulties in the airline industry, service lines between Bangkok and Fukuoka/Hiroshima have been abolished. We are concerned about the trend like this. We are asking JAL to maintain the service lines.
• We are ready to further enrich promotion plans.

After Mr. Kitayama returned a salutaion, Governor responded to each topic raised by JTBF in the meeting, as follows.

• We share an importance of PR that Thailand is a safe country. Assignment of Ryo Ishikawa as Tourism Ambassador is one of effective ways to appeal safety. Another example is a promotion of cross communications of universities between 2 countries, which is steadily advanced by mediation of Asean Center.
• We will enhance facilities for long stayers, golf tourists, handicapped persons and so on. Construction is under way at Hua Hin to provide living facilities for longstayers, changing design by theme.
• We understand importance of repeating visitors. We received similar advices from Asean Center also. We would accept advices in regard to enrichment of optional tour menu as well as renewal of guide pamphlets.
• Different from Japan, we do not have promotion policies by each province. TAT centralize information froｍ local divisions. The law must be revised to allow local government to take initiative of promotion. TAT have a stock of guide books of each province written in English already. They have to be updated and translated to other languages. Translation to 19 languages is under preparation. Prioritized are Thai, English, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, in this order. Enhancement of web site is also important.

Time for the interview was only 30 minutes, not sufficient for detail discussions, but understanding of problems deepened on both sides.