Tag Archives: Thailand

The Government of Thailand has decided to extend the waiver on the 2000-baht visa-on-arrival fee for Indian nationals till April end to boost tourism in the country. The waiver was set to end early January, but the cabinet decided to extend it to allow foreign tourists to Thailand during the Chinese New Year in February and the Songkran festival in the middle of April.

To ensure a seamless golf experience exclusive to Thailand, The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), New Delhi, has launched the Thai Golf Pass Season-II after the success of  first-ever golf loyalty programme for any country. The new season of the programme aims to offer exciting rewards on redemption of loyalty points. The focus of Thai Golf Pass Season-II is to integrate its website with travel partners’ website while increasing the number of loyalty partners to 200 and membership’s base to cover 5000 golfers. Besides bringing all the suppliers under one platform, TAT is also looking to organise promotional events in India and Thailand. On the occasion, Isra Stapanaseth, Director, Tourism Authority of Thailand, New Delhi, said, “Amazing Thailand is a paradise for golfers with more than 250 international standard golf courses, professional caddies, warm hospitality, wellness and food, and entertainment. We are looking forward to Indian golfers to become a part of this loyalty programme and experience the services and offers.”

Thailand-based low-cost carrier (LCC) is set to launch four weekly direct flights connecting New Delhi and Bangkok from December 19, 2018. It has also announced a special promotional one-way Economy Class fare starting from Rs 7,200 (USD 99), inclusive of taxes and surcharges. The special promotional fares are available from December 07 to 31, 2018 for travel between December 19, 2018 to March 30, 2019. The new services will be operated with Boeing 777-200 wide-bodied, twin-aisle jets. Configured with a total of 415 seats, the Boeing 777 offers an unprecedented LCC level of comfort to customers with 24 seats in ScootBiz Class and 391 seats in Economy. Giam Ming Toh, Deputy CEO, NokScoot, said, “We are proud to announce NokScoot’s inaugural service from Delhi to Bangkok on December 19, 2018.  This route marks our first ever service to South Asia and follows the launch of services to Tokyo Narita in June 2018 and Osaka Kansai in October 2018.”

The PATA Destination Marketing Forum (PDMF), themed on ‘Growth with Goals’, welcomed 290 delegates from 25 destinations. The event, hosted by Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) and Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), with the support of Khon Kaen Province, brought together delegates from the public and private sectors for insightful discussions on some of the major issues in marketing and managing tourism growth to lesser-known destinations. Dr Mario Hardy, PATA, CEO said, “This event stems from the need to help secondary and tertiary areas grow and develop into widely recognised, bucket-listed tourism destinations. Aligning with our advocacy theme of tourism dispersal, the forum shines the spotlight on new and emerging destinations, introducing delegates to lesser-known yet attractive corners of the world. It is designed to assist communities economically in these destinations by encouraging dispersion of tourists to new frontiers.” Delegates will hear from experienced industry professionals during the conference on major topics like ‘Status of Destination Management Around the World’, ‘Role of Local Experiences in Destination Marketing’, ‘Managing the Disconnect between Destination Organisations and Communities’, ‘Transborder Marketing. Case Studies of GMS’, ‘Fighting Undertourism Through Innovative Storytelling’, ‘Calculating our Impact as Destinations’ and ‘Leveraging Technology to Revolutionise the Travel Space’.

GoAir is all set to commence its international flight operations by offering India’s first-ever direct service to Phuket, Thailand effective October 11, 2018 from Delhi and Mumbai. This will be followed by its second international service connecting Mumbai and Delhi with Male, Maldives effective October 14, 2018. These destinations will also be connected from Bengaluru in the near future. GoAir will continue to operate its A320 aircraft in all operations and on both these international routes. The airline will operate three direct flight services per week between Mumbai – Phuket – Mumbai at a return fare starting from Rs 18,999 (all inclusive); two direct flight services per week between Delhi – Phuket – Delhi at a return fare starting from Rs 18,999 (all inclusive). Similarly the airline will operate three direct flight services per week between Mumbai – Male – Mumbai at a return fare starting from Rs 17,999 (all inclusive); 2 direct flight services per week between Delhi – Male – Delhi at a return fare starting from Rs 18,999 (all inclusive). Commenting on the launch of their international operations, Cornelis Vrieswijk, CEO, GoAir said, “Phuket and Male are key tourist destination and hold a lot of promise. As an LCC, we have always strived to offer the best value for money to our customers and now we extend this proposition to the international traveller as well. The international schedules have been planned to allow quick and convenient connections for customers and is a reflection of our continued journey towards excellence.”    

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) announced that Thailand has been named as the host country for the 19th International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA Awards), which is scheduled to be held in Bangkok from 22-24 June, 2018. This makes the second time the Thai capital plays host to the biggest celebration of Indian cinema, having hosted the 9th IIFA Awards on 8 June, 2008. Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT Governor, said, “India is one of Thailand’s important sources of visitor markets. Being named as the host country for the glitzy and glamorous IIFA Awards for the second time reiterates Thailand’s positioning as the preferred destination among Indian travellers.” Wizcraft International, the producers and creators of the IIFA, made the official announcement at a press conference held in New Delhi on 17 May, 2018. Making the appearances to confirm Bangkok as the host city for this June’s star-studded weekend included Bollywood bigwigs Ranbir Kapoor, Karan Johar, Dia Mirza, Shahid Kapoor and Kartik Aaryan.

VITS Hotels Worldwide has announced a joint venture with Exhicon Group in Thailand. The new entity will operate under VITS-EXHICON (Thailand) Co. and an office with a seasoned team of professionals will be established in Bangkok. Vikram Kamat and Chandrakant Shetty will be directors in the new entity. The JV partnership will work on hotel acquisitions, OTA management, staff training, procurement and F&B operations within Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Dubai. VITS Hotels will provide hotel management expertise, marketing, sales support, human resources and distribution network while EXHICON will support with its local business network, project acquisitions and overseas procurement. Both VITS and EXHICON will own 50 per cent share in the joint venture management company. Vikram Kamat, Managing Director, VITS Hotels Worldwide, said, “Our partnership offers immense opportunities to leverage on each other’s expertise to expand the VITS hotel brand in Far East and Middle East. We aim to channelise our resources with our valued partner to establish footprints in key destinations and draw tourists from India and abroad.” Chandrakant Shetty, CEO, VITS Hotels Worldwide, said, “With our collaboration with EXHICON Group, we are now pleased to announce the VITS luxury experience in overseas shores. The joint venture will create a formidable recipe for establishing hotels in key destinations. We will be launching our first hotel in Phuket near Patong beach by January 2018.”

Vietnam’s low-cost airline, VietjetAir has appointed Bird Travels as its GSA in India. Vietjet has been expanding its flight network in Vietnam and will continue to spread its wings to new destinations in the Asia Pacific region and around the world. Vietjet’s flight network covers Vietnam extensively and includes connections to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Myanmar and eight destinations in China. It is operating a fleet of A320s and A321s having an average age of 3.3 years.

AirAsia has introduced two new routes between India and Thailand with a Bangkok-Jaipur connection and a Bangkok-Tiruchirappalli connection respectively. While both routes will ply four times a week, the former will run on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday while the latter will run every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday starting September 28, 2017.  Aiming to attract Indian shoppers to Thailand, the new routes come with promotional fares available. Tassapon Bijleveld, CEO of Thai AirAsia said that AirAsia plans to continually penetrate the Indian market in the latter half of 2017 as it is a major market with great growth potential.  Indian travellers rank sixth among the most frequent visitors to Thailand while the Kingdom responds to all kinds of lifestyles from shoppers and night-time entertainment seekers to travellers looking for hospitality and wellness retreat.  The airline is confident that the two new routes will stimulate tourism for both countries. Thai AirAsia presently flies direct from Thailand to four fascinating Indian cities of Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Kochi, maintaining a Load Factor average of 80 percent with 80-85 percent of passengers coming from India, indicating determined strength of the market where travellers have consistently showed excellent feedback toward AirAsia.

Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism released figures showing that during the first four months of this year, 12 million visitors came to Thailand spending around 620 billion Baht, an increase of 4.71 per cent when compared with the same period in 2016. The kingdom also witnessed a growth of 17 per cent in the number of Indian arrivals compared to 2016 in the same period. Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT Governor said, “Thailand attracts many tourists because it offers experiences that are new and unique, no matter how many times you visit. In the first few months of the year, the combination of lovely weather and amazing festivals; such as, Songkran or the Thai New Year celebrations means there’s much to enjoy for travellers, not to mention locals.” The ministry projects Thailand’s tourism-related revenue in 2017 will reach THB2.71 trillion. Of that, THB1.78 trillion will come from foreign visitors and THB930 billion from domestic travellers. In 2017, Thailand intends to focus on specific tourism segments such as sports, medical and wellness and weddings.