Thailand moves forward to become regional tourism hub

BANGKOK, January 5 (TNA) - Thailand is going ahead this year to turn the Kingdom to become a regional tourism hub with continual promotional campaigns. Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkura told journalists of the policy on Thursday, saying that Thailand will, thus, focus on, among others, promoting sports tourism activities to attract more international visitors to the country in 2017, including an international running marathon in the northeastern Khon Kaen Province and an inter-provincial 300-kilometre-bike race between northeastern provinces of Khon Kaen, Kalasin, Sakon Nakhon and Nakhon Phanom bordering Lao PDR later this month, as well as the establishment of a regional sports school to attract international visitors and athletes. Besides, the state-run Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will organise a Thai tourism festival at Bangkok's Lumpini Park during January 25-29, 2017, the 37th of its kind, themed "Thai Style Tourism, Stylish and Deep" during 2pm-10pm with no entrance fee. TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn told a press conference that the upcoming five-day tourism event will be divided into 10 zones to display the best products, cultures and traditions, way of lives and folk wisdom of all Thai regions, along with their popular food, as well as recommendations on tourism routes and destinations nationwide. Yuthasak said this year's festival is more special, as it will include the Chinese New Year Festival to also welcome international visitors at the same venue and period. The TAT governor projected that the five-day event should generate more than 400 million tourism-related revenues and to attract up to 650,000 international visitors. According to the TAT governor, the upcoming festival is expected to spur domestic tourism later this year to earn Thailand as high as 940 billion baht for domestic travels among local people alone. Meanwhile, Thailand earned over 30 billion baht tourism-related revenues during the New Year Festival 2017, from December 31, 2016 to January 3, 2017, a 8.69 per cent-year-on-year increase, comprising those earning from foreign visitors about 19.61 billion baht and from Thai travellers about 10.56 billion baht. For the entire 2016, Thailand earned tourism-related revenues of 2.51 trillion baht totally and attracted more international tourists with comparably high purchasing power. (TNA)