Tourism Authority of Thailand screws up again.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand, Amazing Thailand on Facebook, announced a “blog” contest today, 11 June, 2011.  Let’s see how many things they messed up.

Here is the Contest Main Page:

The Tourism Authority of Thailand wants you to submit your entire blog to win their mascot doll, Sukjai.  I have informed them of this before, that one does not submit an entire blog, only a blog post.

Here is the entry page:

Tourism Authority of Thailand Entry Page

At least on the entry page the Tourism Authority of Thailand only has you actually submitting a blog “story” along with a photo.

Now, they announced the contest at about 1500 on Saturday, the 11th of June and the contest has already been going for 3 whole days.  Great timing.

Here are the Rules:

1.Submit a story as you like (only 1 story per 1 candidate)

Contest start: June 8th, 2011

Contest deadline: Mid-day June 20th, 2011

2. Announce 3 winners on May 22nd, 2011. If the selected entrants do not respond to the e-mail notification within seven (7) days of the date of the first attempted contact, or if Sukjai Thailand is otherwise unable to contact the selected entrant within such time, the prize will be forfeited and another runner up will be selected. The names of the photo winners will be posted on Facebook of Amazing Thailand

I guess we have to go back in time to find out who the winners are/were/will be since, according to the Rules and Conditions, the contest winners will be announced on May 22nd, 2011.

Also, note the last sentence in the Rules:

The names of the photo winners will be posted on Facebook of Amazing Thailand

This is in direct violation of Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines – winners cannot be announced on Facebook.

Now, the Tourism Authority of Thailand ran a photo contest that ended on 3 June, 20011, and the winners were also supposed to be announced on Facebook on 6 June, but I haven’t seen anything yet.  But, all the photos are still posted here.

I will not count the numerous grammatical errors, but the Rules and Conditions are a bit lacking.

Oh yeah, once you submit your blog story, you have no idea if it was accepted except that the path to your photo disappears.  No “Thank You for submitting your blog story” or no redirect to a Thailand tourism page.  You just have to hope that your entry made it.

Now, I don’t know who set up the contest page, but most likely, the Tourism Authority of Thailand contracted it out.  But, still, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, whether it be Amazing Thailand or Sukjai Thailand, is ultimately responsible.

But, I guess that the Tourism Authority of Thailand is too busy at the Thailand Travel Fair 2011 in Bangkok this week to get this right.

Tags: blog contest entry facebook incompetent photo TAT tourism authority of thailand violation