TAT MOVES TO ATTRACT MORE JAPANESE STUDENT VISITORS

As the Japanese government is encouraging its school and university students to take short holidays abroad in an effort to boost their global and cultural awareness, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has seen this as a potential segment for inbound tourism to Thailand.

On August 1, TAT hosted a seminar to boost cultural contacts between Japanese and Thai students and increase the number of Japanese high school and university students visiting Thailand.

About 50 Thai teachers and top executives of educational institutions in Bangkok and nearby provinces as well as representatives of tour companies handling the Japanese market participated in the seminar on “Promotion of Sight-seeing Trips and Educational and Cultural Activities for Japanese Students.”

Organised at the Merchant Court hotel, the seminar was supported by the Tokyo Jogakkan High School, Association of International Education Exchange and the major Japanese travel wholesaler Japan Travel Bureau.

Speakers at the seminar included TAT’s Tokyo Office Director Sansern Ngaorungsi, Tokyo Jogakkan High School Vice Principal Masi Susumu, Association of International Education Exchange Managing Director Tanaka Tomohiko and JTB’s Education Tour Department Manager Tsuruta Yujiro.

The seminar was aimed at helping Thai teachers, school executives and tour operators better understand the educational and travelling expectations of Japanese students and how to organise and promote cultural exchange tour packages.

In 1999, Thailand received a total of 1,064,539 Japanese visitors, of which 131,726 were students aged between 15-24 travelling both independently and with their families. The number of Japanese students travelling to Thailand increased significantly by 24.45% in 1999, comprising about 15.65% of all international student visitors to Thailand.

Japanese high schools and universities are allowing their students to travel overseas in specially-organised tours of up to 96 hours. The short duration of this puts Thailand in competition with other medium-haul destinations like Taiwan, Korea, China and Hawaii. Each trip averages about 100-200 participating students per group and includes a half- or full-day visit to a local school at the destination, cultural exchanges and youth activities such as sports, music, discussion, drawing and painting, etc. and visits to major tourist destinations.

At a wider level, such contacts are also in line with the policy objective to promote cultural exchange between ASEAN countries and Japan.

Commented TAT Governor Pradech Phayakvichien, “Japan has been Thailand's biggest source of visitor arrivals and tourism exchange revenue while Japanese youth and student visitors have also shown dominant and rapid growth.” Added the Governor, “This seminar is therefore very much in line with our efforts to attract this new market. To further develop it, we intend to join forces with Thai educational institutes to launch marketing campaigns, produce marketing collaterals and brochures and place advertisements in major Japanese educational publications.”