TAT sets out its stall for 2023 sales

BANGKOK, 16 January 2023: The Tourism Authority of Thailand has set lofty targets for 2023, starting with a promise to generate 25 million international tourists with earnings estimated at THB1.5 trillion.

It made the claims at a press conference late last week focused on “Visit Thailand Year 2023” Towards Meaningful Travel Directions, a theme crammed with slogans and classroom alliteration focusing on five F words or “soft-power pillars — food, film, festival, fight (Muay Thai) and fashion.

TAT’s optimism perked up after China announced the end of travel restrictions opening the outbound travel floodgate to independent travellers on 8 January, just a few days before the Lunar New Year holiday kicks in on 22 January.

It is also shouting from the rooftop that the country welcomed “11.8 million international tourists” in 2022, a difficult claim to verify independently.

Counting on a tourism revival in 2023 that will cause tourism earnings to soar to THB2.38 trillion ( international and domestic), TAT could be guilty of glossing over threats that could slow or even stall tourism recovery worldwide.

Have TAT’s forecasts failed to consider airfares doubling worldwide when compared pre-Covid times, skyrocketing cost of living trends including surging fuel price hikes and a possible escalation of the Ukraine conflict that could threaten world peace?

TAT’s rosy picture for 2023 sees it claiming a return to 80% of the country’s pre-pandemic performance recorded in 2019. Thailand welcomed just short of 40 million international visitors in 2019

China’s outbound travel market, currently limited to individual travellers rather than package tour groups, ranks the highest prospect for growth in 2023, at a forecasted 3 to 5 million visits to Thailand. But other source markets in the TAT’s “seven digits” tally list (1 million and over), such as Malaysia, India and South Korea, are identified as potential giants contributing to Thailand’s 2023 visitor count.

Partnerships will drive TAT’s tourism revival campaign with airlines such as  Qatar Airways, Etihad, Oman Air and Emirates. Other key airlines collaborating in joint promotions with the TAT include AirAsia, THAI, FlyDubai, Aeroflot Air Canada and Delta Airlines.

It’s all part of TAT’s  “ABCD Fast Forward” campaign that sounds like a school chalkboard lesson for marketing students – A for Airline focus, B for Big cities and beyond, C for Collaboration with airlines and OTAs and D for Destinations with year-round appeal. Fast forward is the desired outcome, which brings us back to the Five F foundations – old faithful themes of food, festival, film, fight, and fashion, all favoured stalwarts of past Amazing Thailand campaigns.