What does Thailand do when there are no Chinese tourists?
Thailand is targeting the Indian market, especially young people, spending liberally to make up for the lack of Chinese visitors.
“India is an important market to make up for the absence of Chinese tourists,” said Thanet Phetsuwan, deputy director general of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
The Indian audience that TAT targets are people under 25 years old, who like to travel in the Asia-Pacific region. This generation of young tourists spends quite liberally when coming to Thailand. They make up 42% of India’s population, or 600 million people, larger than the Chinese population of the same age (about 400 million people).
Indian tourists visit Wat Pho in Bangkok, Thailand. Image: Caro/Flickr
Thailand plans to launch an air travel bubble program with India. It is expected that at least 12 airlines from the two countries will participate in this plan. “We expect capacity on flights to average about 70% for the India-Thailand route. This will significantly make up for the shortfall of Chinese passengers,” said Mr. Thanet.
TAT aims to welcome 500,000 Indian visitors this year. The agency will also participate in the South Asia Travel and Tourism Exchange 2022 fair in Delhi, India next May to promote Thai tourism.
According to TAT, the Indian tourist market developed rapidly before the outbreak of Covid-19. 19.95 million Indians came to Thailand for tourism in 2019, bringing in revenue of 83.37 billion baht ($2.5 billion).
Before the pandemic, China was the largest market for Thai tourism. However, up to now, this country still applies the “Zero Covid” policy and Chinese people still cannot travel abroad.
Mr. Minh (According to National Thailand)
at Blogtuan.info – Source: vnexpress.net – Read the original article here
