States praised for stimulating demand
Tourists pose for photos at the entrance to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai province. Mr Srettha said the government had no plans to implement tourist fees yet.
The private sector has called for attention to be paid to the supply side of tourism after the prime minister called for the withholding of a 300-baht tourism fee from foreign visitors that was to be used to establish a tourism development fund.
“The government’s performance over the past eight months is 10 out of 10 in terms of stimulating tourism demand, mainly through visa policies. However, the more significant issues related to Thailand’s tourism, such as poor supply development, cannot be assessed as no measures have been taken to help solve the problems,” said Chamnan Srisawat, chairman of the Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT).
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Chiang Mai Northern Tourism Cluster, Prime Minister Srettha Tavishin said the government has no plans to implement tourist fees yet.
Sletta said the government wants to attract more tourists and get them to spend more money at the same time, and he noted that the revenue generated by the extra spending would generate bigger benefits than would be gained from levying tourist fees.
There is no dedicated financial resource for tourism development as the tourism tax appears to be on hold. Sletta said the government would allocate a budget to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports for project proposals to stimulate tourism revenue.
Chamnan said the number of tourists visiting the country this year will undoubtedly reach 35 million, but without proper planning, it will be difficult to improve the overall customer experience and improve spending.
“It’s unfortunate that a tourism fund will not be established due to the postponement of toll collection. We are not concerned about the quantity but the poor quality and lack of appeal of the tourism experience is the main concern,” he said.
Chamnan said if the country could not set up a development fund, it would not be able to improve tourism-related infrastructure or develop new tourism products like other countries that are constantly building new tourist sites to stimulate domestic and international markets to spend money in the country. He cited the examples of China and Vietnam, which have successfully built new man-made attractions aimed at attracting more tourists.
With tourism revenues standing at just 830 billion baht in the first five months of this year, while the government is targeting revenues of 3.5 trillion baht by the end of 2024, Mr Chamnan said the current situation already proves that Thailand still lacks new tourism products and convenient infrastructure to make tourists comfortable during their stay in the country.
He said the TCT wants the government to launch five large-scale man-made projects in five regions to generate tourism revenue from more destinations, especially in second-tier provinces where the government is already actively promoting them.
Chamnan said tour operators would help include these new destinations in tour packages, and if the new attractions prove popular among tour groups, targeting individual travellers in the next phase would become more feasible.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Tourism Associations of Thailand (Phetta) has also called for urgent tourism development in five areas, which are included in a white paper it will soon submit to the government.
Sisdeepavacha Cheevaradtanapong, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, part of Phetta, said one of the key policies was to boost supply development to a level equal to or greater than the demand side.
He said both the current and previous governments always prioritised stimulating demand through marketing campaigns, with key performance indicators (KPIs) focused on tourist arrivals rather than supply-side improvements.
He called the policy “unbalanced” and said it was leading to unsustainable economic, social and environmental development as tourist inflows were concentrated in certain areas while second-tier cities continued to suffer from problems such as poor transport and infrastructure, which meant they could not attract tourists in the long term, he added.
Fetta agreed that tourism authorities should set new KPIs and prioritise developing and improving supply, such as tourist safety standards and environmental impact standards for each region.
The white paper also proposes establishing a tourism capacity blueprint for Thailand, which is to be developed by the public and private sectors as well as academia to guide tourism development.
Mr Sisdivachar said a tourism fund to be set up once the tourism fee is implemented should be allocated 100 baht per person to focus on sustainable tourism development and crisis management in case of any unforeseen events in the future.
“Compared with other major tourist countries in Southeast Asia, our country’s score on the Travel and Tourism Development Index is already very low,” he said.
