TAT to introduce Khao Yai, to focus on high-end luxury travellers from India

KAHINI CHAKRABORTY – Mumbai

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is going to introduce a new destination – Khao Yai – for the Indian market from October this year. Maintaining its strategy to continue attracting the mainstream market – leisure, wedding, honeymooners, golf, etc – the tourism board this year is also planning to attract high-end travellers from the India. Talking exclusively to Express TravelWorld, Sethaphan Buddhani, director, Tourism Authority of Thailand Mumbai said, “This year we are looking at upgrading our products in Thailand. We are going to leverage on 3.0 marketing strategy wherein we will be focusing on providing experience and value of the destination.”

Apart from the key metro cities in India, the tourism board is keen on expanding its focus to tier II and tier III cities in the country. Gujarat has been marked as a major potential market for the tourism board. When asked about the increase in overnights by Indian travellers, Buddhani added, “The average overnight has been 4.7 days in the destination. However, we are working on strategies to further increase the number of overnights and expenditure by travellers.” He further added that TAT has been developing destination specialist programmes for travel agents in the Indian market for the last three years, and in the future will continue working on the same. TAT is also open to working closely with any airlines for better connectivity.