Bangkok, April 11 - The private sector has urged the government to rebuild the image of the Southern region before next week's Songkran festival to encourage locals into the area, which was recently hit hard by floods.
Maiyarat Pheerayakoset, president of the Association of Domestic Travel, called on the Tourism and Sports Ministry and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to visit the South as soon as possible. The officials are also urged to go and see unaffected tourism areas.
"What they need to do is to promote travel by local people to all unaffected areas during the annual festival," she said.
She said most tourist places in Krabi, Phuket and Koh Samui were not affected by the flooding and operators are running business as usual.
She said almost 100 per cent of sea tours and packages to the region had cancelled. However, the government can help bring them back by promoting unaffected areas.
The association believes that tourism in the Northern region will return to normal. Prateep Jongthong, president of Trang tourism association, said about 80 per cent of hotel booking during Songkran holidays in the province was cancelled due to travelling inconvenience. Tourists fear when the railways would resume operations, while some roads are severely damaged. Some tourists can't afford expensive plane ticket prices. Exacerbating the situation was the weather forecasts that more rain would come during the holiday period. He noted that Trang has lost at least Bt5 million a day in tourism revenue.
Sakarin Chosawai, manager of the Thai Hotels Association, said hotels in the South needed help from the government through encouraging people to visit the region during Songkran.
TAT plans to bring 300 foreign travel agents and media into the country next week to experience the Songkran festival and to see that the tourism situation has remained stable. The aim is to generate significant amounts of business and positive publicity for Thailand.
TAT governor Suraphon Svetasreni said this "mega fam (familiarisation) trip" was arranged because there is no better time for visitors to see Thailand at its happiest.
"No matter what else is going on, everything gets set aside for these few days as everyone takes a five-day time-out to cool off and have fun. The festivities involve all Thais nationwide, including foreign residents. And we know from experience that visitors have a lot of fun too, especially young people."
Nearly 300 representatives of international travel agents and journalists have been invited to join the tour - 103 from Asean, 51 from Europe, 45 from North America, and 93 from East Asia. The group is scheduled to experience the country's ecotourism, as well as a visit to Wat Pho and a river cruise.
At the same time, TAT is cooperating with government agencies and private-sector partners to organise a number of activities for Thai and foreign visitors to celebrate Songkran in Bangkok and 12 major provinces most popular with foreign and domestic tourists.
