Amazing Thailand, the Facebook page for the Tourism Authority of Thailand, posted a link yesterday to their Policy & Marketing Plan.

This Policy & Marketing Plan, as laid out by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, is totally worthless.

Tourism Authority of Thailand Dancers

It is worthless, because it says nothing.  The Tourism Authority of Thailand must have gone to US Military Gobbledygook school to learn how to write long sentences and say absolutely nothing. Reminds me of high level Mission Statements put out by the U.S. Army. They don’t get relevant and specific until they get down to the soldiers’ level.

Let me show you what I mean.  Here is the 5-point Tourism Authority Of Thailand Policy And Marketing Plan:

Promote the tourism industry to be an important instrument in tackling the country’s economic problem, creating jobs for people as well as increasing income for the country. Moreover, promotion should be done to make tourism play a vital role in the development of the quality of life in all regions of Thailand as per the policy of the government.

Let’s see – economic problem – Fail,  jobs for people – Fail, increasing income – Fail, quality of life – Fail.  We are off to a great start!

Despite what the Tourism Authority of Thailand Propaganda Minister Governor says, tourism is down from previous years and the numbers he keeps spouting are total fabrications.  The Hotel Business Associations give the true picture of tourism in Thailand and it is down, down, down.

Promote and develop the operation on proactive marketing strategies for increasing the new markets as well as the niche markets. This is in order to attract more quality tourists to visit Thailand. At the same time, domestic travel for Thais should be vigorously encouraged. The positioning of Thailand is to be drawn out clearly, too.

I have yet to see any promotion targeting niche markets.  The videos that the Tourism Authority of Thailand put out are crap and show the same old shit of people riding an elephant, visiting a temple, eating some food.  There are NO videos targeted solely to golfers, honeymooners, wedding planners in India, Chinese tourists, or the good folks in Estonia.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand continues to promote things like the World’s Largest Water Fight during Songkran the the Tiffany Beauty Contest in Pattaya to choose the most beautiful transvestite.  Guaranteed to NOT attract “quality tourists”.

Domestic travel marketing is about the only thing that the Tourism Authority of Thailand knows how to do (along with stealing photos from other web sites to post on their Facebook page).  But, TAT continues to make up numbers of domestic travelers and how much they spend.

The positioning of Thailand drawn out clearly – I don’t think anyone knows what that means.

Promote cooperation in all levels domestically and internationally on promotion for the development of tourism markets. This aims to get rid of all hindrances in the tourism industry and pave the way for Thailand to be the tourism hub of Southeast Asia.

HAHAHA.  Thais do not know how to cooperate.  There are so many levels of bureaucracy in the Thai Government and they compete more than cooperate.  The Local Thai Hotel Associations complain constantly at the lack of support from the Thai Government. If Thailand wants to be the tourism hub of Southeast Asia, so much needs to be done.  Improve the service at Suvarnabhumi International Airport (especially Immigration), get rid of the Mafia at the airport, bust all the scammers ripping off tourists in Bangkok, Pattaya, and Phuket, clean the beaches, learn about sustainable tourism, do something more than hold conferences about the ecology and environment, and learn to market to foreigners.

Aim at organization and management development as well as development of the human resources’ ability to create a capable driving force in the operation. Moreover, this aims at strengthening the potentiality on international competition under the good governance as well as developing the strength of the organization on its technical roles as well as knowledge on  marketing.

These two sentences are perfect examples of “many words, says nothing”.

Accelerate the development of a tourism technological system for accommodating business activities information (E-Tourism) on the Internet. Included here is also the carrying out of electronic commerce as well as applying information technology in marketing. The necessary mechanism on controlling and protection have to be in place to ensure prevention of problems.

OK.  The Tourism Authority of Thailand contracted out to someone to build them an App for smart phones.  I have not seen it or heard of anyone using it, but if it like the printed material that TAT publishes, most likely things will be wrong – like locations.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand continues to live in a shell and only markets to local Thais.  Major Tourism events are always held in Bangkok, and only Bangkokians can take advantage of deals – nothing is offered online to those living outside of Bangkok.  Sometimes, I get the feeling that the Tourism Authority of Thailand doesn’t want foreigners to visit Thailand.

The only way that the Tourism Authority of Thailand applies Information Technology to Marketing is using the Internet to steal photos and text and post these to their Facebook pages.