Did Strength of Thai Baht Affect Number of Arrivals from UK in 2019? Interview with TAT

On 24 August 2015 the GBP/THB was at 56. Almost exactly one year later the Baht was at 45.53, and on 3 September 2019 travellers to the Kingdom of Thailand could get just 36.96 Thai Baht for 1 GBP.

Despite the strength of the Thai Baht many would argue that Thailand still represents excellent value for money as a destination, and with approximately 39.77 million people visiting the country in 2019, the numbers seem to suggest that many agree. So how has the strong Baht, Brexit and other UK-related issues impacted Thailand's tourism industry?

That's just one of the questions that Steven Howard of TravelNewsAsia.com puts to Chiravadee Khunsub, Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand - UK, Ireland and South Africa, in this exclusive interview.

Filmed at TAT's office in London on 8 January 2020, Khun Chiravadee tell us how the UK market was affected by the strength of the Thai Baht in 2019 and what she expects for 2020.

We discuss visitor arrival numbers and tourism revenue from the UK in 2019, what targets TAT has for 2020, and what trends Khun Chiravadee is seeing.

With so many airlines now flying directly to secondary destinations within Thailand, and from secondary destinations in the UK, we also talk about how that is changing the tourism sector and which airports in the UK Khun Chiravadee would like to see have more direct flights to Thailand.

We talk about emerging destinations within Thailand, especially Isaan, and what lessons can be learned from Buri Ram's success with sport tourism.

We also talk about the demographics of visitor arrivals, tourism revenue and whether Airbnb distorts those numbers, how TAT plans to market Thailand to the UK market this year and which market segments they are going after the most. All that and much, much more in the FHD video and podcast below.

Thailand Tourism Industry Interview with Chiravadee Khunsub

PODCAST

See latest Travel News, Interviews, Podcasts and other news regarding: Thailand Travel Mart, TTM+, Phuket, Roi-Et, Ubon, Khon Kaen, Sisaket.