Yesterday, 27 February 2011, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), through their Facebook “Amazing Thailand” page, posted a link to a contest and invited local Thai and Foreign friends to participate. Only problem is – the website is all in the Thai language.
Immediately after they posted the link to the contest, I thanked the Tourism Authority of Thailand so very much for inviting foreigners to a competition that most of us “Farangs” will not be able to enter since most foreigners cannot read Thai. This was followed up by about 6 more people asking where the English version of the website was. No answers to any of our questions.
Screen shots of the website are throughout this post broken up in about 4 pieces.
Tourism Authority of Thailand Contest Site
I also posted a question asking why was the Tourism Authority of Thailand announcing a contest on 27 February 2011 when the contest started on 5 January 2011. No answer as to why the announcement was almost two months late. This coming from an organization that is supposed to make announcements of events months in advance. It seems like they are mostly announced in the middle of an event or after an event has already taken place. Once in a while they actually give an hour or two notice before an event occurs which is worthless if one has to travel to join in.
Tourism Authority of Thailand Contest Site
In less than one hour after posting the initial announcement, the Tourism Authority of Thailand deleted their original post without answering any one of us as to why this contest website was only in the Thai language. I also posted the question directly on their Facebook wall and no answer yet.
Tourism Authority of Thailand Contest Site
This just goes to show that the Tourism Authority of Thailand does not have a clue as to how to market Thailand and TAT primarily markets to local Thais. It also shows a total lack of consideration towards possible tourists when they don’t even answer a simple question. This is not how a government organization with a 5.24 BILLION baht budget attracts visitors to its country.
Tourism Authority of Thailand Facebook Page
The Tourism Authority of Thailand is too busy making worthless posts on Facebook like “Good morning Sunday !! Any ideas for the last Sunday of February ? Share with friends here !!” Or they post pictures of food like the one above of a pumpkin custard pie. Do they really think that inane posts like this will attract tourists to Thailand?
There are a few words of English on the website and one of them that should be an easy word to spell is spelled incorrectly – it should be SPONSORS not SPONSER. You would think that knowledge of English or other foreign languages would be a prerequisite for getting a job at TAT. Apparently it isn’t.
Maybe one of these days the Tourism Authority of Thailand will learn how to market Thailand correctly, answer questions posed by possible tourists, and use Social Media to it fullest.
2 Comments
Update – my question:
“Larry Westfall -> Amazing Thailand
What happened to your post about the contest? – http://tat5region.tourismthailand.org/”
The Reply:
“Amazing Thailand This Activity is for Thai People But this page is for foreigner. That’s why we didn’t promote it. By the way, Thank you for your suggest >
Just goes to show that TAT doesn’t promote to foreigners and their answers make no sense.
[...] posted here: Tourism Authority of Thailand Fails Again | Khon Kaen Posted in: Thai Trevel ADD [...]