Source: The Nation

The economic ministers yesterday approved Bt16.8 billion to help tourism operators affected by the recent political turmoil, Tourism and Sports Minister Chumpol Silapaarcha said yesterday. The amount will be proposed for Cabinet approval today.

Meanwhile, Thai Airways International (THAI) may post a second quarter net loss of Bt5.4 billion, with passenger numbers plunging in the wake of the political turmoil, president Piyasvasti Amranand told leaders of more than 700 airlines at the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting in Berlin yesterday.

However, he assured the audience that the political crisis was now over. THAI will also push forward the sale of 1billion shares this year.

The Tourism and Sports Ministry on Monday proposed the economic ministers meet to formulate an urgent financial package worth Bt21.2 billion to help operators suffering from the Red-shirt chaos of April and May. However, that amount was sliced to Bt10 billion.

Chumpol said Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva reasoned the amount could be cut back because the government had placed priority on assisting small and mediumsized enterprises before moving to large operators in the second phrase.

Affected operators may request loans from the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand (SME Bank) at interest of 23 per cent for a maximum eight years. Payments on the principal will be waived for the first two years. The maximum loan amount will be Bt5 million.

The ministers also earmarked Bt1.5 billion for the Government Savings Bank to assist riot-affected individuals. They also approved Bt360 million for the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to restore domestic tourism within the next three or four months. The TAT earlier said it needed Bt1.6 billion to rebuild tourism over a few months.

And the ministers granted Bt5 billion to help general operators suffering from political unrest stretching back to the Bangkok airport closures in late 2008.

Last year, the government allocated Bt5 billion to help operators, but many companies have still not received that assistance, due to complicated regulations, procedures and paperwork. Moreover, the ministers also reduced the tax deduction ceiling from a proposed Bt15,000 to Bt12,000.

Federation of Thai Tourism Association spokesman Charoen Wangananont said the funds approved should help operators to run their business for a few months.

However, he believes the industry will not return to normal in less than three months and hopes the government will approve more money later. He said big operators might be in a difficult situation for the short term, due to receiving no immediate assistance measures from the government.

The tourism industry is experiencing great difficulties this year, losing an estimated Bt100 billion from the recent Red shirt demonstration and violence.

Source: CNN

The Thai government launches travel incentives in a bid to win back the world’s travelers as government advisories are reduced

Several signs have emerged this week that the world’s confidence in Bangkok is slowly returning following last month’s violence.

On the front page of today’s Hong Kong Standard is the headline “Bangkok’s Back.”  The Standard reports that there are some great deals for Hong Kong residents looking for cheap trips to Thailand now that the government has lowered its travel advisory against Thailand from the top warning level, black, down to red.

This is good news for the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), which says the country needs to focus on domestic and regional travelers from the Middle East and Asia right now given it’s the middle of the low season. In a statement released this week, the TAT says it will work with the private sector to offer special promotions for travelers.

“The proposed tourism recovery packages have to be carefully planned to ensure the most effective returns on investment, especially in view of the fact that Thai tourism is now in the low season,” says the TAT.

The Thailand chapter of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) says it wants the world’s travel industry to throw their support behind the Tourism Authority’s inclusive ‘welcome back’ campaign, which is currently being created based on constructive ‘all for one, one for all’ principles, but notes that  cheap deals aren’t a quick fix.

“The problem is not price,” said PATA in a statement released to the media. “The problem is how to show travel buyers and consumers that Thailand is safe, stable and more welcoming than ever. We need a unified, consistent response, not knee-jerk price cutting.”

In terms of travel advisories, many countries have revised their warnings this week. Canada has lifted its warning against non-essential travel to Thailand, but urges its residents to “exercise a high degree of caution.” The United Kingdom too has replaced its previous advice, which advised against all but essential travel to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, now advising travelers to exercise caution if heading there.

The United States recently downgraded the warning advising American citizens to avoid all travel to Bangkok, though it still advises against non-essential travel to Thailand at this time.

In a related development, Abhisit Vejjajiva Popularity Soars in Thailand: Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is fast becoming the most popular PM in Thailand’s history, this week he received the highest confidence vote of any cabinet minister in a survey of people in 30 provinces, Bangkok Poll of Bangkok University.

The Bangkok Poll said it surveyed people around the nation on “How People Feel about the Recent Censure Debate” after the no-confidence debate against the prime minister and other five ministers was over. It did not say how many people were involved.

The people were also asked to cast a vote in favour or against the grilled ministers.

Mr Abhisit received the highest confidence vote (71.7 per cent), followed by Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij (71.0%), Transport Minister Sohpon Zarum (54.4%), Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya (53.6%), Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban (52.8%) and Interior Minister Chavarat Charnvirakul (50.0%).

According to the poll, 43.5 per cent of the respondents wanted the Democrat-led government to continue running the country, while 28.4 per cent of them preferred a House dissolution, 17.6 per cent favoured a cabinet reshuffle, 3.8 per cent wanted the premier to step down and only 1.4 per cent wanted the Red Shirt opposition camp to become a government, the most resounding slap in the face to Thaksin Shinawatra yet.

A number of media commentaries have predicted eruptions of social unrest in Europe, some with revolutionary connotations, as a direct result of the economic crisis. Thailand has just suffered the consequences of these struggles also, but local observers have condemned mainstream media for “biased reporting” on Thailand’s turbulent few weeks.

Recently The Nation, an English-based newspaper in Thailand, published an “Open letter to CNN” by Napas Na Pombejra, which set out to reprimand CNN correspondents Dan Rivers and Sarah Snider, citing that “thousands of CNN’s viewers have already begun to question the accuracy and dependability of its reporting.”

The same could be said for the BBC and other news agencies. For those of us living in Thailand it does appear they have resorted to “biased reporting”. Pombejra’s letter reminded CNN’s journalists, reporters, and researchers that they “have a collective responsibility to follow the journalist’s code and ethics to deliver and present facts from all facets of the story, not merely one-sided, shallow and sensational half-truths.”

What the writer was concerned about was this: “Statements seem to have been solely taken from the anti-government protest leaders or their sympathisers,” and complained that “details about the government’s position have come from secondary resources…No direct interviews with government officials have been shown; no interviews or witness statements from Bangkok residents or civilians unaffiliated with the protesters, particularly those who have been harassed by or suffered at the hands of the protesters, have been circulated.”

The main thrust of the piece noted that: “Rivers and Snider’s choice of sensational vocabulary and terminology in every newscast, and choice of images to broadcast, has resulted in law-abiding soldiers and the heavily-pressured Thai government being painted in a negative, harsh and oppressive light…”

The Economist, while not exactly favourable in this country for its own slant on Thailand’s problems pointed out that: “[Thailand] is also counting the economic cost of the worst political violence in decades. GDP grew by 12% in the first quarter as exports rebounded. Now growth faces threats on three fronts: the uncertainty roiling the global economy; a slump in domestic demand; and the damage television pictures of Bangkok as a war-zone have done to Thailand’s important tourism industry. With the economy stuttering, the social and class divisions that emerged during the confrontation will be even harder to heal.”

Maybe, but Thailand’s prime minister Abhisit, at the end of an “acrimonious two-day censure debate” made a desperate call for reconciliation. But his course of treatment included bringing ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to justice. The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) is to circulate copies of his arrest warrant on terrorism charges, with copies distributed to 187 Interpol member countries asking them to help capture him.

The Economist’s take, that Kasit Piromya, Thailand’s foreign minister, has complained that other countries are not helping Thailand to catch a “bloody terrorist”, despite a 2008 court conviction for corruption. It notes that Interpol reveals that he is still not on its fugitive list.

Reuters reports that: “Calm has returned since troops forcibly dislodged protesters demanding immediate elections from their fortified encampment in ritzy central Bangkok on May 19, providing a window of opportunity to dip back into what had been one of Asia’s hottest emerging markets,” but that “Thailand remains fundamentally divided between what some analysts see as a peasant and proletariat movement largely backing ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and what they call an aristocratic “establishment elite” of royalists, military brass, bureaucrats and the educated middle class.”

In recent times, a number of media commentaries have predicted similar eruptions of social unrest, almost in revolutionary dimensions, as a direct result of the economic crisis, with warnings that Europe will suffer the return of nationalist tensions and the emergence of fascist movements.

This was backed up by historian Simon Schama of the Financial Times, who stated last month: “Far be it for me to make a dicey situation dicier but you can’t smell the sulphur in the air right now and not think we might be on the threshold of an age of rage…in Europe and America there is a distinct possibility of a long hot summer of social umbrage.”

So Thailand’s unique brand of unrest is not isolated in the world’s social pathology of today. And Ko Chang, an island a million miles away from “sulphur in the air”, is still as much an attraction for tourists as it always was.

Source: BBC News

Anti-government protesters shut down Bangkok’s shopping district for a third day and stormed an election office, as Thailand’s political impasse continued.

The protesters, known as the red-shirts, are calling for the government to step down and hold fresh elections.

They have been demonstrating in the Thai capital for almost a month and over the weekend moved their protest to its commercial hub.

A government request for a court eviction order has been turned down.

The court ruled that the government already had the power to evict the protesters under the emergency security laws it has imposed.

The protesters say they will not move until their demands are met and, says the BBC’s South East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey, their tactics are becoming increasingly bold and provocative.

Court order

On Saturday the red-shirts moved their main camp from the historic old part of Bangkok to the city’s wealthy, commercial heart.

Many have been sleeping on mats outside five-star hotels and shopping centres, forcing businesses to close and lose money.

On Monday, as the stand-off continued, about 100 protesters forced their way into the Election Commission building.

The red-shirts accuse election officials of delaying an investigation into alleged irregularities involving the party of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

The demonstrators dispersed after being given an assurance that the case would be addressed later this month.

No violence was reported but the move raised fears that the protests – which have been peaceful so far – could turn ugly.

The government has declared the rally in the commercial district illegal. Under special security laws, the protesters have also been barred from entering or blocking 11 major routes which run through Bangkok.

But the red-shirts remain defiant; they say that they will stay in central Bangkok and fan out to occupy more locations.

A Bangkok court says that the government has the power to evict them; our correspondent says that the question, then, is when and how the authorities might choose to exercise that power.

Source: Bangkok Post

Derided for many faults when it opened, Suvarnabhumi Airport appears to have won over international travellers, who now rate the Bangkok gateway as among the world’s 10 best airports.

Suvarnabhumi took 10th place in the 2010 World Airport Awards rankings, a global survey of 9.8 million passengers by the London-based independent aviation research institute Skytrax.

The airport climbed in the Skytrax ranking from 16th position in 2009 and 37th in 2008 after Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) worked to overcome flaws in service and product quality to earn passengers’ satisfaction and trust.

Nirandra Theeranartsin, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport, said yesterday that the airport’s latest ranking should motivate AoT staff to continue to improve.

“It has been our firm objective to achieve the stature as one of the world’s best,” he told the Bangkok Post. “We will continue to strive to climb the Skytrax ratings to a top-five position in the next two years.”

Suvarnabhumi has also risen in the worldwide rankings of the Geneva-based Airport Council International (ACI). The airport took 24th spot in the 2009 ACI survey, up from 28th place in 2008 and 41st in 2007.

But Suvarnabhumi continues to trail its two direct rivals in Southeast Asia – Singapore Changi and Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) – which also moved up in the 2010 Skytrax ranking.

Changi topped the poll after taking third spot in 2009. KLIA has moved up to the fifth place from seventh in 2009.

Rising higher up the rankings will now be tough for Suvarnabhumi, as other leading airports have been working hard to maintain or improve their position, say industry observers.

For instance, Abu Dhabi International Airport has jumped 47 places to take the No. 26 spot in 2010 World Airport Awards list.

The 2010 Skytrax airport survey covered more than 190 airports and evaluated traveller experiences across 39 different service and product factors.

Source: Bangkok Post

This site has been quiet over the past month or so as tens of thousands of demonstrators set up camp in Bangkok demanding fresh elections. Yesterday talks between both sides went ahead but Prime Minister Abhisit ended them when pressed about a timeframe for parliamentary dissolution. He left the country today for a short visit to Brunei, but was scheduled to return to resume the talks. The outcome is not likely to be settled for years and, outside the political arena, not much has changed in Thailand. [ ED KCI]

The government and the red shirt leaders’ decision to sit down for talks to settle the continuing political conflict is most welcome.

Although the positions of the two parties remained far apart at the end of their three-hour meeting yesterday, it began a long-overdue process to resolve the differences between the groups.

Needless to say, the two-week stand-off between the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) and the government has caused much anxiety for all Thais. The massive street gatherings and the deployment of security forces in the capital have disrupted the lives of Bangkokians. They have also caused immeasurable damage to the economy.

A series of dramatic stunts staged by the red shirts in which protesters were sent to military barracks and other public and private places have increased the danger of violence. A series of bomb attacks on government buildings, state-run TV stations and commercial banks are strong indicators that the “peaceful” protest might not remain that way for long. Those behind these subversive plots – regardless of their motivations – must be condemned. With or without the red shirts’ knowledge, these senseless and barbaric acts must stop if all stakeholders in the present dispute are sincere in wanting to lead the country out of its sorry state.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva should be commended for being open-minded in embracing the peace talks with the UDD leaders. His decision to welcome them at the negotiating table has helped significantly ease the political tensions that have gripped Bangkok for the past fortnight.

With the prime minister and the red shirt leaders agreeing to resume talks later today, it is hoped both sides will come up with more accommodating propositions to make the peace talks fruitful.

The red shirt leaders in particular must demonstrate more sincerity and flexibility. Their offer to give the government two more weeks to dissolve the lower house is still far from acceptable as it fails to explain how this will lead to reconciliation.

Mr Abhisit has already made clear that he does not object to a snap election but prefers to see some fundamental rules in place to ensure a lasting reconciliation in the country. These may involve constitutional amendments and guarantees that all parties will accept election results. He suggested at the talks that concerned parties work out a clear road map to provide a basis for a new election before the lower house is dissolved. This proposal is reasonable and should be supported by the red shirts if they are sincere about their calls for true democracy in Thailand.

Three days to wait now for the Thai Supreme Court’s decision on former prime minister’s Bt76 billion asset seizure case. The government has beefed up security around the capital, while the “red-shirt” protesters, who support Mr Thaksin, have threatened to stage rallies if the Supreme Court’s ruling should go against him.

Meanwhile, fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra recent claim that he is “not concerned” about having his 76 billion baht seized by the government sounds all too hollow. If so, why all the fuss, one could ask?

Anyway, yesterday there a seminar on Thailand’s future where Thaksin participated via a video conference call, in which he claimed that Thailand has been without justice for the past five years. Definitions of “justice” sometimes run counter to perceptions here but he said that he had received complaints from foreign investors about “the dubious business practices in Thailand”. Now, that is rich.

He went on to warn that foreign investments could easily evaporate should Thailand’s political situation remain unstable. The former prime minister was in no mood for conciliation and blamed all of the problems of Thailand on “the person with influence” who initiated the coup, reiterating that there was no “wrongdoing”, saying the money had been earned prior to him entering politics. Not quite.

According to The Nation newspaper, the final quarter of 2009 saw the Thai economy “rebound from a year-long recession”, with growth in the fourth quarter surging 5.8 per cent from a year earlier. JP Morgan suggested Thailand will “see a 6.5 per cent growth rate” this year, with a rebound in exports and government spending helped the economic turnaround. That is, if Mr Thaksin really does shrug his shoulders if the sequestration order proceeds against him.

Surprisingly, tourist revenues in December “jumped sharply to help turn the Thai economy around”. But this upturn now heavily depends on the fallout as from Friday, as domestic political uncertainty is back in the frame. And although the Supreme Court, which is due to rule on Friday on the Bt76 billion asset seizure case, with the government having beefed up security around the capital, there are still fears that the red-shirt protesters, who support Thaksin, have threatened to stage rallies if the Supreme Court’s ruling should go against him.

On the front page of the Bangkok Post today, the accusations got even steamier, with the New Politics Party spokeman, the former “yellow-shirts”, clamining that there were rumours that “five of the nine judges” had been offered “one billion baht each” to turn the ruling in Thaksin’s favour.

At this point, despite the welcome news of recovery, the Thai economy is still being held hostage by the political uncertainty. Less than three days to go before the court’s verdict, most Thais are holding their breath about the possible outcome. No matter what the ruling is, the political uncertainty will continue to drag on, probably until March. With this uncertainty, the business environment is likely to be subdued and the high growth rate expectations might turn out to be overly optimistic.

Amongst all this, Sports Minister Chumpol Silpa-archa said that “1.579 million visitors arrived in Thailand in January, a 24.35% increase over the same month last year.” I would ask him to take a look at the Ko Chang Island stats that suggest March is significantly down on lat year.

Travel agents and tourists have been asking the TAT how the verdict will affect the country’s stability and infrastructure, with England, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Australia having issued travel advisories, telling their citizens to be careful while visiting Thailand and to avoid areas with demonstrations in non-tourist areas.

Citing the world’s economy recovery, this year would be a “golden year of Thailand’s tourism sector”, if there in no unrest, because more foreign arrivals are expected. With the red-shirts seem to to running out of steam, and perhaps money, the Thai public is thoroughly fed up with their political manipulations.

It’s hard to tell the outcome of either the assets seizure case and their reaction to it, but for those who want to skip the capital and enjoy a peaceful holiday in the sun with slack regard for Thailand’s political shenanigans, Ko Chang is still the beautiful, peaceful island it always was.

Source: Bangkok Post

Asean tourism ministers have admitted failure in their efforts to promote Asean as a single destination and develop the Asean tourism brand. As a result, they have embarked on a new campaign built on the fact that “Southeast Asia” has greater recognition in international source markets than “Asean”.

The region’s tourism promoters hope that www.southeastasia.org will draw more visitors.

The campaign will target tourists in medium- and long-haul markets such as the UK, Australia, India, North America and Hong Kong. It is part of a $4-million Asean Competitiveness Enhancement (ACE) project funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2008-13.

In January 2009, the ACE project consultants signed an agreement with the Asean Tourism Association (AseanTA), which groups the region’s private-sector travel industry associations, to develop a new, more effective marketing strategy that promotes Southeast Asia as a single destination.

The new campaign unveiled last week at the Asean Tourism Forum in Brunei elevates the name “Southeast Asia” to co-branded status with “Asean”.

It’s a sharp turnaround from the first Asean Tourism Agreement signed by heads of state in November 2002, which committed them to “promoting Asean as a brand in the international market”.

That agreement also committed the leaders to supporting the (now defunct) Visit Asean Campaign, with thematic tour packages and attractions to encourage visitors to focus on specific areas of interest.

The agreement was aimed at fostering co-operation among Asean national tourism organisations (NTOs) and the industry, particularly airlines, hotels and resorts, travel agencies and tour operators, in marketing and promoting transnational tour packages, including sub-regional growth areas.

However, a study of the impact of Visit Asean, done in May 2007 by Dr Noel Scott, a senior research fellow at the School of Tourism, University of Queensland, reported a “lack of progress at the outcome level”, a euphemistic way of saying it had gone nowhere.

Funded by AusAID, the Australian aid agency, the study pinpointed “a number of underlying issues” such as:

- Alack of sufficient and guaranteed funding to enable a branding campaign to take place.

- Alack of marketing strategy and plan based on consumer and trade research and endorsed by relevant government stakeholders and the industry.

The report was ignored by tourism ministers and the Asean secretariat, which subsequently called for the marketing strategy and brand campaign to be “revisited”. That led to another strategy in June 2009, this one funded by USAID, which said it was time for a change and that “Southeast Asia” would be more appropriate as a brand.

Over the last 12 months, the new approach has been debated intensively. In spite of reservations expressed by Thailand and Malaysia, the switch to the new brand image has won favour largely for purely marketing reasons.

It has also allowed the Asean tourism industry to sweep its own failures under the carpet.

In the most glaring example of this failure, the Asean Tourism Agreement had mandated the “expanding and strengthening [of] Asean co-operation in overseas markets and major international tourism and travel-trade fairs”.

The Noel Scott study noted that setting up a common Asean area in major international travel trade shows was “one of the easiest” ideas to implement.

“A common Asean area in international travel fairs is a specific location/contiguous space where all participating Asean NTOs would co-locate their destination booths. The benefits of such co-location are that it promotes the Asean member countries as a cohesive unit among the trade buyers and sellers.”

But, apart from a single Asean common area at the China International Travel Mart 2006 in Shanghai, no such collective effort was ever made.

Moreover, none of the present generation of tourism leaders has any recollection of the highly successful Visit Asean Year staged in 1992 to mark the 25th anniversary of Asean.

Several marketing gurus and online travel experts have lauded the new campaign, which they say will gather steam with the amount of money set to be thrown at developing content and marketing the new website http://www.southeastasia.org.

But for others, it has only buttressed the claim that Asean has a long way to go in putting its money where its mouth is.

“If they could commit hara-kiri with their own tourism branding, how do they expect to succeed in forging a wider Asean identity?” asked one cynic.

Source: AFP

The Asia-Pacific region has overtaken North America as the world’s largest air travel market with 647 million passengers in 2009, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said Monday.

By contrast, 638 million people flew on commercial flights in North America last year, IATA announced at an aviation business conference on the eve of the Singapore Airshow featuring the world’s leading aviation industry players.

Within Asia, China has eclipsed Japan over the past decade as the region’s largest domestic market, with 1,400 aircraft compared with Japan’s 540 and 5.7 million weekly seats against 2.6 million in Japan.

The Singapore Airshow is taking place after a harrowing year in the global aviation industry, which lost an estimated 11 billion dollars in 2009 as a result of the financial meltdown that began in the United States.

IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani told the conference that the Asia-Pacific market would continue to grow rapidly with an estimated 217 million additional air passengers a year in the region by 2013. Related article: China’s online travel market booming

“While we see dynamism and diversity within the region, the aspect of Asia-Pacific that excites me most is its potential,” said Bisignani.

“More than a quarter of the 2.2 billion people who flew last year, or 647 million people, flew within Asia-Pacific markets.

“It has eclipsed travel within North America as the traditional leader in traffic numbers.”

IATA represents some 230 carriers that account for more than 90 percent of scheduled air traffic, but does not include many of the budget airlines credited with a boom in short and medium-haul travel in recent years.

Its members in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and North America recorded year-on-year declines in passenger demand of 5.0 to 5.6 percent in 2009, according to an IATA report released Friday.

But Asian airlines staged a strong recovery in December, when demand grew 8.0 percent from a year ago, nearly twice the global average, the IATA report said.

Bisignani told the conference that Asian airlines were projected to narrow their losses collectively to 700 million US dollars this year from 3.4 billion dollars in 2009, about a third of the industry’s global losses last year.

“It is tough in all regions but Asia-Pacific’s prospects are improving faster than other regions,” he said.

Despite the upbeat outlook for Asia, Bisignani warned the region to press on with liberalisation or miss its growth potential.

He cited efforts by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional bloc to liberalise the air sector by 2015 as an example.

“Industry is preparing and it is important that the target date is met… Asian aviation will not reach its potential if the airlines are constrained to old ways of doing business,” he said.

Source: Bangkok Post

The travel industry is pinning its hopes on healthy customer spending at the Thai International Travel Fair 2010, which it says will reflect demand and confidence in Thai tourism in 2010.

Charoen Wangananonth, the president of the Thai Travel Agents Association (TTAA), said that if spending at this year’s fair was higher than last year, the tourism outlook would be brighter.

The fair will be staged by the TTAA, the Association of Domestic Travel, Krung Thai Card (KTC), and Thai Amadeus from Feb 25-28 with 1,127 local and foreign agencies occupying 20,000 square metres at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center. Prizes worth 10 million baht will be offered to spur sales.

“We think the tourism industry should recover this year because of the global economic rebound and possible local political improvement, even if the day of judgement for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is approaching. We believe the time for violent incidents in Thai politics has passed and everybody wants peace,” Mr Charoen said.

The TTAA projects bookings during the four-day event will be higher than last year. Total visitors should increase to 800,000, from 500,000 last year, and spending will top 900 million baht compared to 600 million last year.

Staporn Sirisinha, the KTC senior executive vice-president for leisure marketing, said the company expected KTC card members would spend 280-300 million baht throughout the four days of the event, up from 220 million last year.

Mr Charoen said the private sector believed local tourism would gradually recover this year.

“We will meet with the minister every month to review and brainstorm ways to enhance the country’s tourism industry. This year, we want to focus promotion in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan,” said Mr Charoen.

He said tourists from China and Japan are returning, and bookings for the coming Chinese New Year were 50% higher than last year.

“Reservations at golf courses by Taiwanese, Koreans and Japanese have significantly increased since the start of this year,” he said, adding that at least 1 million Chinese tourists were expected to visit Thailand in 2010.