TAT looks to long-haul tourist market for 2024

Siripakorn Cheawsamoot, TAT deputy governor for international marketing in Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Americas, said on Friday that the agency expects foreign tourists to generate 1.62 trillion baht in revenue for Thailand this year, including 660 billion baht from long-haul travellers and 960 billion baht from short-haul visitors,

In 2024, TAT expects foreign tourists to generate 1.92 trillion baht in revenue for Thailand, with the long-haul segment making up 721 billion baht.

He also pointed out that tourists from Europe and US are likely to stay in Thailand longer and spend more than their short-haul peers.

Citing the survey on tourist behaviour in the first three months of this year, he said tourists from Europe, the Middle East, and the US stayed an average of 19.4 days, 16.17 days, and 15.26 days, respectively and spent an average of 71,718 baht, 99,172 baht and 76,297 baht per person per trip.

The TAT is also planning to set up offices in Riyadh and Chicago in a bid to attract more tourists to Thailand.

The office in Riyadh will be responsible for attracting tourists in Saudi Arabia and North African countries, while the office in Chicago will be responsible for attracting tourists from Canada, he explained.

He added that the office in Chicago will cooperate with TAT branches in New York and Los Angeles in introducing more charter flights to Thailand.

However, he noted that there are many challenges to attracting long-haul visitors to Thailand, such as economic volatility, number of international flights, higher fuel prices and costly flight tickets. It is estimated that it will take two years for the number of international flights to recover.

He said TAT has come up with a strategy to attract these long-haul tourists next year, including offering sustainable tourism package. Each TAT office will be tasked with attracting more than 1 million tourists to Thailand.