Mr. Yuthasak Supasorn, Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), shared Thailand’s plan to achieve 10 million international visitor arrivals in 2022, while speaking at the 22nd World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
As one of the speakers of the panel on “The Recovery of Travel in Asia and the Pacific”, Mr. Yuthasak underlined the strategies and approaches TAT was using to achieve these targets, while forecasting a return to 80% of the overall tourism revenue of the pre-pandemic era. He also stated Thailand’s direction towards more sustainable, more inclusive, and more environment-friendly tourism.
He noted how the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions had created much pent up demand for travel, and Thailand now, that it was fully reopened to foreign tourism, was seeing visitor arrivals from markets around the world rebound.
Mr. Yuthasak said “TAT is welcoming back the world’s travellers with its ‘Visit Thailand Year 2022-2023: Amazing New Chapters’ marketing campaign, in which visitors are invited to experience the wealth of existing and new tourism experiences on offer throughout the kingdom.”
Thailand’s drive towards more sustainable and responsible tourism is also in line with the government’s Bio-Circular-Green or BCG Economy Model.
This new direction for tourism in Thailand is seeing TAT laying the foundation for a tourism industry that is customer centric and values experience tourism. TAT is encouraging more collaboration among players both inside and outside of the industry, and embraces innovation to develop and promote sustainable tourism products and create a tourism business ecosystem that offers mutual benefits to all parties.
The 2022 WTTC Global Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, took place from 28 November to 1 December. The Recovery of Travel in Asia and the Pacific panel was held on 29 November. Joining Mr. Yuthasak on the panel were Hiroyuki Takahashi, Chairperson of the Board, JTB Corp; Liz Ortiguera, Chief Executive Officer of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, and Gaurav Bhatnagar, Co-founder of the TBO Group. The session was moderated by Nawied Jabarkhyl, Correspondent and News Anchor, CGTN.
