The Tourism Authority of Thailand is suffering big time due to the Bangkok Shutdown protests and the implementation of the State of Emergency decree issued by the Thai Government.
So far, the response from the Tourism Authority of Thailand to the disastrous numbers of foreign tourists is to sugar coat the bad news, lie about the situation (call hand grenade bombings “incidents”), and continue their bullshit about the Bangkok Shutdown only having a minimal impact on tourism.
Tourism Authority of Thailand Chaiyaphum Temple
So, what is the new master plan from the Tourism Authority of Thailand? The Tourism Authority of Thailand is going to rejig promotions.
Now, I had to look up rejig to see exactly what it means. According to the World English Dictionary, rejig means:
— vb , -jigs , -jigging , -jigged
1. to re-equip (a factory or plant)
2. to rearrange, alter, or manipulate, sometimes in a slightly unscrupulous way
It all makes sense. The Tourism Authority of Thailand is going to promote Thailand in an unscrupulous way.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand plans to revamp its promotional strategy after seeing increasing signs of sluggish income this year due to the ongoing political unrest.
No, this cannot be right., One has to have a strategy in place in order to revamp it.
TAT governor Thawatchai Arunyik yesterday said the political situation and street protests in Bangkok had already affected the number of visitors, mainly from Asian markets.
Notice that the Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor did not give a specific percentage of foreign tourists that have cancelled trips to Thailand. That would damage the image of Thailand.
Foreign tourists have expressed their concern over the prolonged unrest, and many potential visitors asked about the political situation during their visit to the TAT pavilion at the “Asean Tourism Forum 2014″ fair, which was held in Malaysia over the past week.
And, I am sure that the Tourism Authority of Thailand lied and said that things were peaceful and normal in Bangkok.
Many of them were confused as to whether the government’s enforcement of the emergency decree would include a curfew, he said.
Maybe it is because of the political situation updates from the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the lack of TAT using Facebook and Twitter to give current updates. No one goes to the TAT news website.
“We have prepared an urgent meeting for our Asia and South Pacific marketing staff. We will, however, wait to see the market reaction [to the decree] during the Chinese New Year festival, so that we can then put in place a strategy in line with the current situation in Thailand, and the travel behaviour of tourists coming from particular markets at different periods of time – such as those from Australia and the Middle East, who travel to the Kingdom during the lower season in June and July,” said Thawatchai.
So, the Tourism Authority of Thailand will plan another BIG SALE in Bangkok in June. Same shit, different year.
“We will accelerate [our efforts] to promote confidence among our target customers, especially those who are repeat visitors to Thailand, which account for about 60 per cent of total clients. This repeat group knows Thailand well and has a good understanding about the political situation,” he added.
How will the Tourism Authority of Thailand promote confidence when it doesn’t even know how to promote Thailand?
“We will also release a testimonial ad to be produced by well-known bloggers with the use of online media, to promote our tourism sector. We will assign our marketing staff to seek ‘new’ markets, such as Singapore, where there is good demand to visit Thailand but also worry about the political unrest in Bangkok. However, there are some students from Singapore who have proposed organising an educational trip to Chiang Mai,” said the governor.
Ah, so the Tourism Authority of Thailand will pay to have another video produced that no one will see. Hope it is better than Martin Craigs video – the CEO of PATA that made one during the 2011 floods. That video has 232 views since November 2011.
Surely that brought millions of visitors to the Kingdom
Thawatchai also said that there were, however, some markets in Asia where there was no significant concern about the political unrest. He cited India, and especially the wedding-couples segment, which still viewed the Kingdom favourably as a destination to host nuptial ceremonies.
This is because there are a couple of scheduled weddings that haven’t been cancelled.
The TAT also plans to promote other potential destinations that have not affected by the political unrest, such as Hua Hin, Cha-am, Pattaya, the provinces along with Andaman Sea coast, and the northern provinces.
So, why hasn’t the Tourism Authority of Thailand been doing this for the past three months?
Why hasn’t the Tourism Authority of Thailand gotten with the major air carriers to work out some kind of subsidized discount for foreign tourists? Why aren’t the Bangkok hotels offering major discounts? Why doesn’t the Tourism Authority of Thailand learn to use Social Media to its advantage?
This is just more bullshit from the Tourism Authority of Thailand pretending to know what they are doing and suffering the worst high season since TAT was initiated.
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