Tourism Authority of Thailand will get lost mapping the future.

Article in today’s Bangkok Post about an upcoming conference hosted by the Tourism Authority of Thailand.  The conference will be held on 19 May and will be conducted entirely in English with a few English speaking organizations.

Tourism Authority of Thailand Amazing Thailand

The Bangkok Post article is all over the place and is even posted in the wrong section of the online newspaper.  It is listed under “Business -> Aviation” instead of “Tourism”. One would think that is where an article about the Tourism Authority of Thailand would go.

The unnamed author challenges the Tourism Authority of Thailand to get as much bang for its 2 million baht as it can.  This is commendable but I seriously doubt that it will happen.  The Tourism Authority of Thailand doesn’t like it when Foreigners tell them how to run their business.  Three local “expatriate” tourism groups will team up with 4 professors flown in to tell TAT how to market to foreigners.

Another issue I have is that this was initiated by the Pacific Asian Travel Association (PATA) the organization that you have to pay to join and recently awarded the Tourism Authority of Thailand  Facebook Amazing Thailand page a gold award for Social Media.  This is a complete farce since the Tourism Authority of Thailand doesn’t have a clue about social media and spends their days posting inane bits of insignificance, copies and pastes other people’s work and photos, violates Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines, and rarely answers questions posed to them by foreigners.  For this they get a gold PATA award.

The author goes on about how these “Expatriate” organizations are supposed to find solutions to all that ails Thailand.

Nevertheless, having sanctioned the large taxpayer outlay, the TAT can demand more bang for buck by seeking specific solutions to problems that are outside its control but which have a significant impact on visitor arrivals, the image of Thailand and economic development. For example, what can these expatriate travel organisations do to hold their governments accountable for issuing hugely-damaging travel advisories? What can their governments do to stop their paedophiles, sex-tourists, mafia gangsters and others from coming to Thailand in the first place?

The aforementioned travel advisories were issued when Bangkok was under siege and the Red Shirts and the Thai Military were going at it toe to toe for about two months.  As for the paedophiles, sex tourists and mafia coming to Thailand, if a product is not available, no one will come looking for it.  How much does TAT spend on promoting Pattaya, a haven for sex tourists?  Is the local mafia worried about the foreign mafia taking over their turf?

The article also claims that tourism was up in 2010.  This is a bold faced lie.

In 2010, inspite of the seven-week political crisis, Thailand still managed to pull off a 12.63% increase in visitor arrivals.

No way in hell did tourism increase last year with all the turmoil and Bangkok burning.

By the same token, the Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor said that 3.04 million tourists participated in Thai New Year, Songkran, this year.  He would have to take all of the arrivals from March and April 2011 to get the 3 million tourist number.  Total bullshit.

Here is another fallacy:

Some expatriate branding gurus are pushing for a new tourism brand campaign. They ignore the fact that the “Amazing Thailand” campaign was so brilliant in terms of brevity and effectiveness that it was picked up by India to launch its own “Incredible India!” campaign.

The “Amazing Thailand” campaign was old years ago and may have been brilliant for a few months.  One would think that with a budget of 5.4 Billion Baht, someone at the Tourism Authority of Thailand could think up a new slogan.

The facts are quite simple.  The Tourism Authority of Thailand does not know what their foreign market(s) are since TAT spends most of its time marketing to local Thais.

I am willing to bet that at the end of the conference, everyone will declare it a resounding success, nothing new will be implemented in 2012, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand will claim that tourism is up once again.

Tags: 2012 future mafia mapping pata pattaya sex tourists TAT tourism authority of thailand