STRONG RATINGS FOR BANGKOK BY US-BASED MEETINGS MAGAZINE

Bangkok has won another outstanding international media award as one of the top ten cities world-wide for US meetings and incentives organisers.

The Global Achievement Awards were listed in “Beyond Borders,” an annual supplement of the Corporate Meetings and Incentives (CMI) and Association Meetings (AM) magazine. The awards recognise the 10 best in each of the four categories: City, Airline, Hotel/Resort, Convention Centre.

Winners are selected by total votes received on an open ballot which is inserted into the Beyond Borders supplement.

Bangkok was top-rated one of the top ten cities while the Oriental Hotel and THAI Airways International were among the top ten hotels and international airlines respectively. The magazines do not rank the 10 in order of choice or number of votes cast.

The CMI and AM magazines are read by professional meeting planners in the US, specially those seeking destinations for MICE events outside of the US. Readers are mostly association CEOs, directors or managers of meetings and/or exhibitions and directors of education/training.

Other readers include management executives, independent meeting planners and other association personnel responsible for off-site meetings, trade shows and incentive programmes.

Commented TAT Governor Pradech Phayakvichien, “We are most pleased with this award and ranking. The TAT is focusing on the MICE market as one of our top priorities for promotion in the United States, and this award will facilitate that promotion in a big way.”

The Governor added, “Bangkok boasts a number of great MICE facilities and tourism infrastructure including accommodation and airline links to attract MICE visitors and business travellers from the US. The opening of the Skytrain has also greatly alleviated the traffic problem for all visitors.”

The winners will be officially announced in the December issues of CMI and AM magazines and the 2001 edition of Beyond Borders. A special awards presentation is planned for Spring 2001.

International convention visitors to Thailand totalled 75,344 in 1999, up 14.57% over 1998. Foreign convention participants were mainly from Malaysia (15.09%), Singapore (10.50%), Australia (7.73%), Philippines (7.18%) and the US (7.10%). Latest statistics for January-August 2000 show that the number of international convention visitors to Thailand totalled 55,818, a strong growth of 26.78% over the same period of 1999.