Building World-class
Tourist Destinations:
Connecting the world to provincial Thailand
By Jon Fernquest
When tourists, either foreign or Thai, travel to remote
poorer parts of Thailand as tourists and spend money, this helps boost
the income of these rural areas.
Maesai in Chiang Rai province is a good example. During the big holidays of the year, Songkhran and Loi Krathong, Bangkok residents leave the city in droves and travel northwards to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.
In Maesai, Thais can shop for a variety of interesting duty-free goods from nearby China or they can travel across the bridge and take a cheap trip to a foreign country, Myanmar, without even buying an airplane ticket.
Tourists bring money to Maesai and most local residents have some business that takes advantage of the town's popularity as a tourist destination, from small shops, to restaurants, guesthouses, laundry service, to vans and other transportation. Everyone gets a cut of the action.
World-class Destination Targets
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), has targeted a small number of destinations to become world-class tourism destinations, 21 provinces to be exact.
Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Chon Buri are expected to be the highest growth areas, but less well know destinations are also on the list, such as Rayong, Phanggna, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Surat Thani, Songkhla, Krabi, Kanchanaburi, and Trat.
TAT will be starting two important projects this year: 1. the Royal Coast project, and 2. the Chiang Mai Convention Center. The Chiang Mai convention center will be located on a 400 rai site in the town and will cost 1.4 billion baht. The Royal Coast project is a tourism plan that will help boost the economy of a whole region.
The Royal Coast project
The Royal Coast project focuses on upper southern Thailand (Phetchaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Chumphon, Ranong). The goal is to promote this region, with over 400 kilometers of coastline, as an international travel destination.
The timeframe for the project is 2007 to 2011. The cost of the project is rather large at 31 billion baht, split between private investors (21 billion) and the government (10 billion).
Each sub-region within the region will have a different focus. Phetchaburi will focus on history and culture. Prachuap Khiri Khan and Chumphon will focus on nature and wildlife (See article today). Ranong will focus on health.
Thai and foreign visitors to the region are to increase over the next three years. Thai visitors will increase from 5.4 million to 20 million, a four-fold increase, and foreign visitors from 661,017 to 3 million.
By drawing more tourists, both domestic and foreign, to this provincial largely rural region, the income of the region will increase.
The Chinese and Indian Market Segments
Thailand is ranked as the third most popular foreign tourism destination by Indians. With 536,356 it was second only to Singapore with 749,000 visitors. Indian visitors are targeted at 600,000 in 2008, 667,000 in 2009, and 728,000 in 2010.
As for China, affluent urban Chinese is the target market segment. Last year the number of Chinese visitors declined slightly to 1 million, a 2.9% drop. A 105 increase in visitors is forecast for this year.
Asian visitor numbers are more sensitive to political instability, so Asian visitor numbers might suffer if the current anti-government protests continue.
This year TAT is expanding its offices in China and India. In China currently there is only an office in the Chinese capital Beijing, but this will change soon with new offices in Shanghai and Kunming. Special Thai product promotion events are scheduled for the upcoming Beijing Olympics (read article on these events).
In India TAT has had an office in the capital New Delhi. An new office in Mumbai was opened last November.
(Photo above is children playing in the cockpit of an airplane, before it takes off, of course)
Vocabulary:
remote - far away from cities,
difficult to get to ที่ห่างไกลจากความเจริญ (ของเมือง)
boost income - increase income เพิ่มรายได้
rural areas - places far away from large
cities ชนบท
in droves - in large numbers
เป็นจำนวนมาก
duty-free goods - goods from another country
that you don't have to pat tariffs or taxes on when you bring them into
the country สินค้าปลอดภาษี
gets a cut of the action - gets some of the benefits
or gain from a new situation ได้รับผลจาก
X targeted - trying to achieve result X
ตั้งเป้า
tourism destinations - places that tourists travel
to, that have things that tourists want to see and do สถานที่เที่ยว
จุดหมายปลายทางสำหรับนักท่องเที่ยว
a convention - a large meeting of the
members of an organisation การประชุม
focuses on y - trying to achieve only Y
(not many other things, that might distract) ให้ความสำคัญกับ
a timeframe for X - a time period that X will
be completed within ช่วงเวลา ระยะเวลา
a four-fold increase - increase by four times, in
the end four times greater เพิ่มขึ้นเป็นสี่เท่า
rank X - put the members of group in
order of how good or important they are (for example, the teacher
ranked the students in the class by using their test scores) จัดอันดับ
ranked as the third most
popular -
the third highest for people liking it, the third most popular
ได้รับการจัดอันดับความนิยมเป็นอันดับที่สาม
affluent - rich, wealthy, has lots of
money มั่งคั่ง
urban - lives in a city
ที่เกี่ยวกับเมืองหลวง
forecast Y - say what Y will be in the
future (usually using statistics or expert knowledge) คาดการณ์
sensitive to Y - affected by small changes
in Y ได้รับผลกระทบจาก
more sensitive to
political instability
- if there are political problems in a country they are more likely to
change their travel plans
ได้รับผลกระทบจากความไม่มั่นคงทางการเมืองของประเทศ
a cockpit - the small room in the front
of a plane where the pilots sit ห้องกัปตัน
take off - when an airplane leaves the
ground and begins its flight นำเครื่องขึ้น