The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has announced the 2024 strategic direction that will continue to elevate the tourism supply and sustainable standards, as well as leverage Thai soft powers to promote and develop high-value and sustainable tourism in Thailand.
According to Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT Governor: “2024 will be the year of accelerating resilience, transforming Thailand’s tourism into High Value and Sustainable Tourism that emphasises on elevating and moving forward to a better tourism ecosystem. To build a new ecosystem, we need to become less reliant on the number of tourists and focus more on increasing tourist spending, attracting quality tourists, developing the supply chain with our partners, and distributing income fairly to the local communities. We need to create a balance between economic wealth, social well-being, environmental wellness, and human wisdom.”
The 4 key factors to create tourism security are: 1) Strengthen the supply chain with quality and sustainability to cater to the rising demand and distribute income to the local community fairly. 2) Develop factors supporting tourism and tourism infrastructure to create safe and smooth travel. 3) Leverage digital transformation through innovation and technology to create value-added and sustainability in the tourism industry. 4) Focus on external risk management effectively.
Elaborating on the initiative, Thapanee Kiatphaibool, TAT Deputy Governor for Domestic Marketing, said: “TAT will continue to focus on creating and delivering ‘meaningful experiences’ to quality travellers with different demands in tourism experiences. To achieve this, TAT is concerned about the subculture movement and will strengthen partnerships at all angles with stakeholders and suppliers to drive Thailand’s tourism industry towards sustainability.”
For the international market, five directions have been devised to boost the overseas market- 1. Enhance the sustainability image of Thailand and utilise it as the country’s unique selling point, 2. Penetrate emerging quality markets to focus on new markets in Europe and the Middle East region and other potential segments, 3. Seek new partners and expand collaboration with global partners, 4. Promote overland travelling via the high-speed train between the People’s Republic of China-Lao PDR-Thailand, and 5. Empower marketing with digital content.
The domestic market promotion will be prioritised on stimulating Thais to travel in Thailand, increasing travel frequency, and distributing tourism income to the local communities, so as to generate income for all sectors equally. TAT will also showcase the strengths of Thailand Soft Power (5F) and highlight meaningful travel experiences across all five regions of Thailand.
TAT will strengthen Thailand’s five soft powers under the Brand Collaboration: Amazing Thailand x 5F project. “With the carefully planned 2024 strategic direction, TAT has set an overall revenue target in the best-case scenario of 3 trillion Baht. This constitutes 1.92 trillion Baht from international tourism and 1.08 trillion Baht from domestic tourism. TAT expects to welcome 35 million foreign tourists and inspire 200 million domestic trips in 2024,” Thapanee concluded.
