HOTELIERS predict that tourist arrivals from China will continue to increase by up to 25 per cent a year over the next three years with a huge number of young Chinese travellers descending on the Kingdom.

According to the Chinese International Travel Monitor 2015 report, 84.9 per cent of hoteliers revealed that they had seen an increase in Chinese travellers, with 30 per cent experiencing an increase of between 26 and 50 per cent.

Hoteliers forecast that trend would continue with an increase of between 11-25 per cent a year until 2018. On top of the increasing numbers, hoteliers say Chinese travellers are getting younger.

The report found that 81.7 per cent of hoteliers said they had noticed more independent young Chinese travellers, or those aged between 18 and 35 (millennials).

China has been Thailand’s clear No 1 source market for a number of years.

Hotels.com found Chinese booking Thai destinations online increased by 32 per cent in 2104.

Abhiram Chowdhry, vice president and managing director Asia Pacific for Hotels.com, said the top 10 Thai destinations for Chinese travellers were Phuket, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, Krabi, Pattaya, Hua Hin, Koh Phi Phi, |Koh Lanta and Koh Pha Ngan.

“Globally, Chinese travellers have grown financial muscle. An average traveller spends around Bt17,796 per day, including accommodation. The top 10 per cent of Chinese international travellers spend Bt73,771 per day including accommodation and spend an average of Bt14,556 per night on hotels alone,” said Chowdhry.

Big spenders

He said “super luxury” Chinese travellers, or the top five per cent of spenders, were sending Bt111,704 on average per day on mostly shopping, dining and sightseeing.

Furthermore, 47 per cent of the top 10 per cent of spenders intend to spend more on dining and food and half aim to spend more on entertainment.

According to the Chinese International Travel Monitor report, one-third of the top spenders usually stay in Thailand between six and nine days, and 33 per cent like to travel to at least two countries per trip.

Chowdhry said hoteliers across the globe had reported that Chinese travellers sought properties with free Wi-Fi and Mandarin-speaking staff.

For Thai hoteliers, one-third said Chinese guests mostly requested free Wi-Fi, Mandarin-speaking staff and translated tourism guides.

Hotels.com last week released its travel trends, which is highlighted by the fact that millennial and affluent travellers had fuelled 20 per cent growth in Chinese outbound travellers in 2014 – with the figure rising to 107 million.

Australia, Japan and France are the top three countries that Chinese travellers say they would like to visit in the next 12 months.

The pyramids, Mount Fuji and the Eiffel Tower are the top three global landmarks Chinese travellers would most like to visit in their lifetimes. Eight per cent of Chinese travellers this year used an online e-device including mobiles, desktops and laptops to plan and book travel, compared with only 53 per cent last year. Chinese tourists said the country with the warmest welcome was South Korea, followed by Thailand and Japan.

Airports of Thailand will complete improvements at all of the six airports under its management over the next two years.

AoT chairman, Prasong Poontaneat, said the company has made big strides to resolve capacity issues mainly in terminal buildings.

AoT is renovating Terminal 2 and Concourse 5 at Don Mueang International Airport. Work should be completed by August this year with operations coming on line in September, a month ahead of the tourist peak season.

Don Mueang’s annual passenger-handling capacity will increase to 30 million from the present 18.5 million.

As part of an overall upgrade, Terminal 1 will also undergo further improvements and eventually cater to just international passengers while Terminal 2 will be used entirely for domestic travel.

At Suvarnabhumi Airport, AoT has identified three projects — the mid-field terminal, passenger terminal and overall infrastructure.

This year, AoT will begin seeking contractors a process that could take nine months.

Actual construction is expected to commence in March, next year, and all the work should be completed by 2019, which will raise Suvarnabhumi’s passenger handling capacity to 60 million a year from 45 million.

The overall cost will be shaved from THB62.5 billion to THB6 billion. No details of how the AoT will finance the project, but most of it should come from cash revenue and government loans.

Meanwhile, a plan to build a third runway at Suvarnabhumi is undergoing an Environmental Health Impact Assessment (EIA) by the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning.

At the same time, a plan to build a second passenger terminal at Suvarnabhumi is under revision as the business outlook has changed from the time the project was first proposed.

The revision will take into account the current roles of Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang and their traffic growth patterns as well as the growth of the airline business.

It is thought that expansion at Don Mueang airport will absorb considerable passenger volume as the main growth in aviation is taking place in the low-cost airline segment. This will take pressure off Suvarnabhumi airport.

Phuket International Airport’s annual passenger handling capacity will grow to 12.5 million from 6.5 million, making it imperative to open an international terminal.

“Construction of the international terminal is 70% completed, well ahead of schedule, and the facility should open to commercial flights in February next year.”

The upgrade of the existing terminal, which will be converted to serve domestic passengers, will begin soon.

In addition, effort to raise the service quality at Hat Yai International Airport is underway with improvements to aprons, additional carousels and passenger terminal enhancement.

At Chiang Mai International Airport, the current focus is on a two-stage improvement geared easing congestion.

The immediate plan, slated for completion by 2018, calls for improvements to passenger departure and arrival areas and car parks.

During 2016 to 2020, Chiang Mai airport’s terminal capacity will increase to 15 million passengers a year from 8 million at present.

At Chiang Rai Mae Fah Luang International Airport, the second-floor of the terminal will be turned into an international passenger hall, while more check-in counters will be added.

During the first five months of the year, the country’s main gateway Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport handled 22.86 million passenger movements followed by Don Mueang with 12.15 million, Phuket 5.56 million, Chiang Mai 3.43 million, Hat Yai 1.53 million, and 708,491 in Chiang Rai.

AoT’s airports are now served by 137 international airlines.

Tourism Authority of Thailand says its 2016 promotional theme will focus on positioning the kingdom as a “quality leisure destination through Thainess”.

Speaking at the TAT Action Plan 2016 conference, Monday, TAT acting governor, Juthaporn Rerngronas, said the plan marks the start of a new era for Thai tourism.

The wording of the new strategy indicates an end to decades of focussing on “quantity”, as measured by visitor arrivals, and a total shift to “quality” as measured by visitor expenditure, average length of stay and the overall quality of the visitor experience.

“This plan marks the opening of a new chapter for Thai tourism. It is based on the fact that there is more than adequate accessibility to Thailand via air, road and sea connections, as well as smooth facilitation that allows visa-free or visa-on-arrival access for citizens from 68 countries and territories.”

She added: “The insertion of the word ‘quality’ into the theme is designed to help the entire Thai tourism industry focus on developing quality products and services. There has already been a remarkable improvement in our portfolio of quality tourism products over the years, and we expect this trend to continue in the years ahead.”

The targets for 2016, as measured entirely in revenue earnings, will increase 8% over projected earnings for 2015, or around THB2.3 trillion. Of that, THB1.53 trillion will be generated by international visitors, while around THB807,000 million will come from domestic market.

Even though TAT did not project international visitor numbers it is expected that the figure will reach 30.56 million visits in 2016.

Thailand tourism revenue is targeted to generate THB2.2 trillion this year, including THB1.4 trillion from 28.8 million international tourists.

The problem facing TAT is that the research benchmarks for calculating revenue are dubious and to arrive at accurate revenue figures for tourism will require a hefty investment in detailed research. Today, tourism relies on sloppy exit surveys conducted by university students. The claimed spend as citied by tourists leaving the country is vastly exaggerated.

The acting governor added: “As Thailand is located right in the heart of ASEAN, we can be sure of strong arrival figures for years to come, assuming that the external and internal operating environment remains stable. So, we can confidently say that the era of promoting ‘quantity’ is over. The era of promoting ‘quality’ has begun.”

The new policy to develop a sustainable and well-integrated tourism industry will require close cooperation with the public and private sectors and will focus on three R’s:

Repositioning: Gearing towards tourism quality (quality leisure destination).

Restructure: Identifying new target markets both in terms of geography and customer segmentation.

Rebalance: Attaining a balance between economic, social and environmental development by better spreading the benefits of tourism across Thai society, and reducing the social, cultural and environmental impact.

The 2016 marketing strategy will refresh the Amazing Thailand branding logo by adding a “Smile” symbol as well as retaining the “Thainess” identity.

The plan also concentrates on niche markets such as golf, weddings and honeymoons, health and wellness, green tourism, ‘halal tourism’ and female travellers.

TAT will attend international trade shows next year such as Tokyo Golf Fair 2016 and host the Thailand Golf Travel Mart.

For Digital marketing, it will launch mobile application ‘Thailand Med Tourism’ for health and wellness market and hashtag campaign #RomanticThailand for honeymoon market. Mega fam trip will be organised for wedding planners to visits Thailand, while TAT will join the Wedding Destination Congress to meet worldwide wedding planners.

To develop supply chain, TAT will organise an Amazing Romance Consortium campaign with local operators to develop honeymoon specialist agents and pre-wedding services.

For destination marketing, TAT will promote Lanta Island in Krabi as a honeymoon destination and Rayong as a wedding destination for Indian market.

For green tourism market, TAT will host the PATA Adventure Travel and Responsible Tourism Conferences in February in Chiang Rai and develop green tourism products, volunteerism and community based tourism.

TAT will also attend international luxury marts such as International Luxury Travel Mart in Cannes, Shanghai and Cancun Mexico and Luxperience in Sydney.

For the female travel market, in August next year TAT will organise a campaign to honour Queen Sirikit’s 84 years birthday in a month of Mom, Celebration of Silk The Miracle Journey event, and Young Designer using silk projects.

“We call on tourism operators to join the campaign by offering privileges for female travellers who visit Thailand in August, next year, for example, restaurants should give a free dessert menu, shops should give premium souvenir, or spa should offer free foot massage,” she said.

For the Muslim market, she said: “TAT believes the Muslim market has high potential due to a population of around 1.6 billion worldwide. Thailand is ready to welcome this market and aims to be a Muslim friendly destination.”

In the ASEAN region there are around 240 million Muslims, mainly in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Other target markets are the GCC countries (United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait), Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria) are also very attractive markets in this category.

In existing markets, TAT will organise roadshow to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, China, Mumbai and New Delhi in India, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.

To tap new markets, TAT will build networks by inviting international tourism associations and leading tour operators to hold meetings and seminars in Thailand such as from Brazil and Spain. Roadshow will focus on South America (Argentina and Colombia), British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, Ireland, Scottland’s Glasgow and Edinburgh, Poland’s Warsaw, CIS, Oman, and United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi.

TAT will also open an office in Prague, Czech Republic, next February, in a response to an increase in travel from East Europe.

Chiang Mai-based Kan Air now operates direct flights from Pattaya (U Tapao Airport) to central and southern destinations in Thailand, including Hua Hin. Meanwhile an agreement has been signed over development of U-Tapao Airport as a 3rd airport serving Bangkok.

The new flight to Hua Hin now operates four times a week to and from U Tapao (20 km south of Pattaya) and is the first service linking the two locations that are on either side of the Gulf of Thailand. The service started on 29th May. The airline also operates three weekly flights to Hat Yai in Songkhla province. The town is a major commercial centre with highway and rail links to nearby Malaysia. A three-weekly service also links U-Tapao (Pattaya) to Surat Thani town.

Surat Thani is the nearest mainland town to the resort island of Samui. There are bus services from Surat Thani airport to the island’s ferry port. The airline uses a 66-seat ATR72-500 to serve all three destinations. The airline has set a one-way fare at THB490 from U Tapao to Hua Hin, including airport taxes and fees. The 50 minute Hua Hin –Pattaya (U-Tapao) flight are on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, departing Hua Hin at 2040 (8.40 PM) and arriving 2110 (9.10 PM). Pattaya departures are on the same days at 1940 (7.40 PM).

Airports of Thailand reports its May data showed increases in both aircraft movements and passengers at the six airports under its management.

AoT reported, earlier this week, that all of its supervised airports handled 8,605,741 passenger movements up 29.13% from 6,664,287 during the same month last year.

The overall airports’ aircraft movements also increased by 18.40% from 50,534 to 59,830.

During the first five months of the year, the country main gateway Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport handled 22.86 million passenger movements followed by Don Mueang with 12.15 million and Phuket 5.56 million. Chiang Mai Airport handled 3.43 million. The definition of a passenger is a person making a single sector trip.

Suvarnabhumi Airport registered an increase of 14.29% in international aircraft movements from 18,059 to 20,640, while domestic movements dropped slightly by 0.50% from 5,621 to 5,593 movements.

International passenger traffic increased 26.87% from 2,782,588 to 3,530,180, while domestic passengers increased 4.26% from 606,617 to 632,477. Overall, it accounted for a 22.82% increase in passengers from 3,389,205 to 4,162,657.

The second aviation gateway, Don Mueang Airport recorded a 32.85% increase in international aircraft movement from 3,836 to 5,096. Domestic movements posted a 36.17% improvement from 9,810 to 13,358.

International passenger traffic increased 62.47% from 451,967 to 734,304, while domestic passengers increased 44.70% from 1,184,005 to 1,713,292.

Chiang Mai International Airport continued to show growth in May. Both international and domestic aircraft movements registered double-digit increases of 38.90% (966 to 1,342) and 30.78% (3,008 to 3,934).

International passenger traffic grew 51.64% from 94,465 to 143,251, while domestic traffic gained 30.57% from 363,071 to 474,077.

Phuket International Airport registered an increase of 2.55% in international aircraft movements from 3,218 to 3,300, while domestic aircraft movements improved 14.43% from 2,911 to 3,331.

International passenger traffic increased 10.71% from 442,712 to 490,142, while domestic improved 19.96% from 366,871 to 440,089.

Chiang Rai International Airport reported an increase in aircraft movements of 3.37% from 1,040 to 1,075 while passenger traffic grew 26.58% from 105,048 to 132,971.

Hat Yai International Airport reported an overall aircraft movement increased 4.65% from 2,065 to 2,161 in May. Meanwhile, overall passenger traffic registered a 17.99% growth from 266,943 to 314,958 passengers.