Indian travel agents visit new Thai tourism products, gets confidence boost

March 13, 2014 Filed under Thailand Posted by admin

Spectacular new travel and tourism products emerging all over Thailand were the primary focus of a familiarisation trip for 30 top travel agents from the Indian market organised by the Tourism Authority of Thailand between 3-10 March, 2014.

Designed to help the agents better sell Thailand to family and leisure clients during the upcoming summer holiday in India (April-June 2014), the visit also proved to be timely and helpful in restoring the confidence of the Indian travel community in the post-political unrest return to normalcy in Bangkok.

In line with the strategy to expand its marketing efforts in secondary emerging cities of India, about half of the agents were invited from Ludhiana, Muzaffarnagar, Chandigarh, Agra, Guwahati, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad. The rest were from the primary gateway cities of Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, and New Delhi.

In Thailand, the group visited Chiang Mai, Hua Hin, and Bangkok.

The trip began on 4 March, in Chiang Mai, with a visit to Kantary Hill Chiang Mai followed by the Night Safari. The next day’s itinerary covered the Mae Sa Elephant Camp, Orchid Farm and the Tiger Kingdom.

On March 6, the group had a table-top business networking session with members of the North Thailand travel trade and then visited the Chiang Mai Convention Centre before departing for Hua Hin, via Bangkok.

On 7-8 March, the agents visited Hua Hin Railway station (Thailand’s most beautiful train station), Plearnwan live museum, Cicada night market and Santorini Park before taking some time to shop at the Venezia Mall.

The agents departed for Bangkok in the afternoon of 8 March, 2014, and were hosted to a business networking dinner with the Thai Untitled

travel trade at the Dusit Thani Hotel.

All the participating agents said they were most pleased and impressed with the organisation and content of the trip, which they said will go a long way towards helping them design creative and interesting tour packages for their clients.

TAT Governor Mr. Thawatchai Arunyik said, “Although the focus of this trip was more on introducing the range of new products, we also included some long-standing natural and cultural attractions which are very popular with families, especially children.”

In 2013, Indian visitors to Thailand totalled 1,049,856, up 3.61% over 2012; it is one of seven countries generating more than one million arrivals. In 2014, TAT is expecting 1,070,000 Indian visitors to Thailand with projected earnings of 45.8 billion Baht in tourism revenue.

Indian leisure travellers generally go shopping and sightseeing in Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, and Ko Samui, with an increasing number also heading to Krabi, Chiang Mai, Hua Hin, and Kanchanaburi. Recent years have also shown a marked rise in Indian wedding parties and golfers.

TAT is expecting that Indian arrivals across all customer and market segments will grow exponentially as the free trade agreements between India and ASEAN are implemented and make progress. If business and MICE travel booms, tourist traffic is not far behind. Untitled