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Chiang Mai and North Thailand Travel Show moves to Chiang Mai for the first time
By Phitsanu Thepthong
The Chiang Mai and North Thailand Travel Show is normally
held in Bangkok, but for the first time it will be staged in Chiang Mai
City, in co-operation with the Chiang Mai Tourist Business Association and
the Thai Hotels’ Association, Northern Chapter.
The event is being jointly organized in cooperation with
Phuket Andaman and will be a “Table Top Sales’’ exhibition, where tour
operators have a chance to explore new markets. Sellers from Chiang Mai, Mae
Hong Son, Chiang Rai, Nan, Lampang, Phitsanulok and Sukhothai will meet with
potential buyers from abroad at the Suan Bua Thani Resort Hotel.
Major tour operators from at least 16 countries will be
invited to the show, which will run from November 29 - December 3.
Traveler Corporation wins rights to Thai Airways In-Flight Duty Free shop
Traveler Corporation has signed a contract to service
duty-free shopping for Thai Airways for the next three years.
Traveler Corporation’s bid offered a minimum income
premium at 2.5 million USD a year with ten percent of the annual earnings.
They also offered the Thai Shop, which has products from the Royal projects
and One Tambon One Product with Home Delivery Sales service.
This company has a lot of experience, with many duty free
businesses in several airlines: North West Airlines, Cathay Pacific
Airlines, Japan Airlines and Australia Airlines. It has been registered on
the Tokyo stock market for 12 years with a registered capital of
approximately 807 million yen.
International film festival to be hosted by TAT next year next year
TAT Governor Juthamas Siriwan recently announced that
given a government policy to support Hollywood film shooting in Thailand,
TAT in collaboration with the Federation of National Film Associations of
Thailand will organize an International Film Festival, dubbed the “Cannes
of Asia”, between January 17 and 21, 2003.
The event will be part of TAT’s Thailand Grand Festival
campaign, with the “Legends of a Kingdom” being assigned as the monthly
theme of January.
Apart from showing some of the world’s great movies,
TAT would also organize international film and animation film contests, as
well as stunt shows, an exhibition on film shooting locations, a filmmaker
seminar, promotion of film markets, an open-air movie screening, and old
film promotion on posters.
The highlight of the event will be a gala dinner to be
attended by world luminaries, and members of the committee for the film
contest.
About 60-70 pieces of work will be shown at the event,
including new Hollywood films. (TNA)
Annual Ancient City Festival to be better than any before!
TAT representative Uamporn Jinkanwison announced that the
Tourism Authority of Thailand is cooperating with Nakorn Rachasima and
Kromsilpakon Provinces to organize the yearly Ancient City Festival, which
this year will take place November 6 to 10.
This
year’s Ancient City Festival November 6-10 in Nakhorn Rachasima and
Kromsilpakon Provinces promises to be the best one yet.
This year’s festival should be bigger than ever, as the
organizers have gone out of their way to introduce a larger variety of Thai
cultural experiences to feature at the festival. In addition to the
wonderful shopping experiences which the One Tambon, One Product project
offers, traditional Thai dances and music, traditional food and even a cat
show, showing off world famous Siamese cats, are just a few of the features
which are scheduled to take place at the Ancient City Festival.
Uamporn said, “The TAT has done everything possible to
make this event as enjoyable as possible for all visitors. This festival is
one of the major 25 festivals which take place in Thailand every year and
this year the festival will be bigger and better than ever. We hope that
many tourists, foreign and Thai will come and enjoy it.”
For further information please contact: Tourism Authority of Thailand,
tel. 0-4421-3666, 0-4421-3030 and 0-4435-1722 and Tourist Association of
Nakorn Rachasima, tel. 0-4425-2020.
TAT Australia invites airlines to increase direct flights to Thailand
Tourist numbers from Australia have decreased in the
first five months of this year, due, in the main, to the reduction of
flights from BA and Qantas, says the Tourism Authority of Thailand
spokesman.
The director of the TAT in Australia, Sukree Sitthiwanich,
said that his office is trying to solve the problem by cooperating with Silk
Air Airlines of Singapore, Malaysian Airlines, and tourism promotion
organizations to launch a marketing plan to sell package tours to Thailand
combining with Singapore or Malaysia.
TAT also plans to invite Virgin Blue Airlines and
Australian Airlines to open direct air routes to Phuket, expected to start
at the beginning of next year. There will also be incentives for the large
tourist agencies to arrange charter flights to Thailand from Perth and
Sydney.
The marketing strategy has also been changed to attract
the high-income tourists focusing on the honeymoon and family market.
Chinese tourism to Thailand gets boost from TAT
Suwat Juthakorn, the director of the Statistics and
Research Division of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, revealed that TAT
would set up a new office in Beijing, China with himself as the director of
the Beijing TAT office.
The tourism marketing policy in China will be initially
to overcome the poor impression Chinese tourists have of Thailand, where
tours to this country have been low priced, but of poor quality.
TAT is to arrange standard tour packages, showing details
about prices and services that the tourists will get, by fixing many levels
of the standard packages for Chinese tourists.
From the outset, TAT will publicize the reason it will be
necessary to raise the package tour price but show that there will be more
services added. The packages TAT will offer include health checks,
honeymoons, golf and spa treatments.
The budget for promoting tourism in China next year
prepared by TAT is 100 million baht.
TAT will also invite Chinese tour agents to consult them
and visit Thailand to promote Thai tourism in return to China, including
inviting Chinese and Thai experts to train the two countries’ guides about
the cultures and traditions of the two countries.
The goal for Chinese tourism is 1 million tourists in
2003.
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