The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) together with key public-private sector partners are jointly launching a ‘Happy Shopping’ campaign to stimulate inbound travel and tourist spending for travellers originating from key source markets in East Asia.

The ‘Happy Shopping’ initiative targets international visitors from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan with highly strategic promotional activities that include sales on tourism products and services.

Mr. Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, TAT Deputy Governor for International Marketing – Asia and South Pacific, said: “East Asian markets include potential highly lucrative short-haul tourists who have very short booking lead times prior to departing on trips. They are known as very keen shoppers in Thailand, so TAT and partners are targetting families, women, and incentive travellers.

“We hope the Happy Shopping campaign will help to stimulate more travel plus increase spending and tourism-related revenue. Moving into the annual end of year high season it’s important to ‘jazz up’ the usual travel offering in Thailand.”

Running from now until 31 October, 2019, the ‘Happy Shopping’ campaign will include special offers and deals on tourism products and services. It will also offer ‘on top’ discounts as well as privileges added to any existing discounts already available for tourists at various shops and businesses around Thailand.

These include branded goods and souvenir items that are popular in the source market countries. Visitors will be entitled to discounts and privileges by only showing their passports to receive the discounts or giveaways from participating restaurants, shopping malls, department stores, duty-free shops, and spas.

In 2018, Thailand recorded almost 15.7 million tourists from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, up 8 percent over the prior year. They generated 867.340 billion Baht (approximately US$ 28,279 million) in total revenue, comprising 142.295 billion Baht spent on food and beverage and 199.234 billion Baht spent on shopping. The average spending per trip of this market was 53,150 Baht per person.

*QR code to download e-directory with offers and privileges for the key target markets.