Tourism Authority of Thailand eyes Sri Lanka with renewed interest

Hayleys Leisure Holdings Managing Director Johann Wijesinghe (left) shakes hand with Tourism Authority of Thailand Mumbai Office Director Soraya Homchuen. Hayleys Leisure Holdings Director Gerard Victoria (second from right) is 

also present 

The Tourism Authority of Thailand’s regional office in Mumbai recently announced the appointment of Hayleys Leisure Holdings Ltd. as its marketing representative for the Sri Lankan market effective 1 January in keeping with TAT’s renewed focus to energise marketing and public relations activity in Sri Lanka. 

Hayleys’ mandate is to represent Thailand by introducing new marketing concepts and its expertise in public relations in the targeted markets. 

Tourism Authority of Thailand Mumbai Office Director Soraya Homchuen said: “Sri Lanka is an important, growing market for us and we remain committed to our mutual progress and development. With a shared objective to always deliver superior customer value, we believe this partnership will help us grow closer to the Sri Lankan market. We believe Hayleys will bring in the dynamism and its expertise needed for to drive the growth in 2017 and beyond.”

Hayleys Leisure Holdings is a company under the ‘Aviation’ sector of Hayleys, headed by Johann Wijesinghe.

Commenting on the new venture, Wijesinghe said: “This is a two-pronged effort for us to bring out the best of Thailand and to ensure our long term friendship with Thailand continues to grow as we promote outbound tourism to such a dynamic destination such as Thailand. We believe there is enormous potential as Sri Lankans find Thailand somewhat foreign but yet there is an unmatched a sense of comfort in travelling to Thailand due our cultures, cuisine, weather, geographic terrains as well as the friendly and polite people of Thailand that have been welcoming Sri Lankans with open arms for centuries. These are all aspects we will focus on in our marketing campaigns to bring out the similarities whilst introducing the many aspects of Thailand that are either off the beaten path or only an expert guide would know.”

Wijesinghe has over 35 years’ experience in the leisure and aviation sectors, of which more than 20 years were in the aviation industry at SriLankan Airlines. At SriLankan Airlines he held many senior positions both in Sri Lanka and overseas, and finally as the Head of Worldwide Cargo and also has extensive experience in the hotel industry, having served as the Director, Marketing and Sales at The Lanka Oberoi. He comes armed with invaluable insights and knowledge to this partnership as does Hayleys Leisure Holdings Director Gerard Victoria. 

As a first step in this process, the TAT website www.tourismthailand.org will be used as an essential tool to get to know the many facets of Thailand – ‘Where to go,’ featuring attractions and accommodation options, ‘Things to do,’ featuring hot-air ballooning to kite surfing, ‘What’s on,’ featuring Thailand, what’s new, special festivals, etc., to a ‘trip planner’ that lets travellers simply pick out their interests and plan according to their schedules.

A whole host of e-services such as deal alert email, send an e-card, send a complaint, download an e-brochure or simply give feedback are on on the website, making it a safe, convenient website that can save the trouble of lengthy online searches and precious time. 

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) was the first organisation in Thailand to be specifically responsible for the promotion of tourism. TAT supplies information and data on tourist areas to the public, publicises Thailand with the intention of encouraging both Thai and international tourists to travel in and around Thailand, conducts studies to set development plans for tourist destinations, and co-operates with and supports the production and development of personnel in the field of tourism. 

Visitor arrivals to Thailand in January-April 2016 totalled 11,682,144, with a growth of 14.12% over the same period of 2015, visitors from East Asia totalled 7,630,739 (+17.26%), Europe 2,526,784 (+8.89%), the Americas 502,627 (+13.76%), South Asia 459,157 (+8.72%), Middle East 226,973 (+11.36%) and Africa 51,566 (+6.44%). If we were to look at South Asia’s contribution; India topped the list with arrivals of 351,869, up 11.22%. Other SA countries reporting increases were Nepal (+47.95%) and Sri Lanka (+2.38%).In January 2017, there were 219,360 Sri Lankan arrivals.

For this year, TAT will be focusing more on attracting quality tourists. Therefore, TAT is targeting tourism revenue with a growth of 8% or around Baht 2.41 trillion ($ 68 billion) this year. Of that total, Baht 1.56 trillion ($ 44 billion) will come from international markets and Baht 850 billion ($ 24 billion) from domestic travel.