Thailand enters quality tourism agreement with Chinese business partners

Thailand is keen in promoting high quality tourism for incoming Chinese travellers with a new agreement with Chinese businesses.

Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin presided over the signing ceremony of a letter of intent (LOI) between the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and eight leading tourism players in China during his first official visit to China.

The agreement was signed between Thapanee Kiatphaibool, TAT Governor, and top executives of the eight strategic tourism partners, including Huawei Technologies, Trip.com Group, Meituan.com, Spring Airlines, Sina News, Alipay, iQIYI, and Jego Trip -- to boost Chinese tourists' confidence and quality tourism to Thailand.

At the signing ceremony on Oct 19, Srettha said the Thai government places importance on reinforcing the comprehensive Thailand-China strategic partnership and strengthening cooperation in areas, such as trade and investment, education, art and culture, and tourism.

"This signing of the LOI will lay a framework for long-term strategic cooperation on promoting quality tourism and maintaining tourists' confidence in Thailand," he added.

From obtaining Thailand's travel information through those Chinese platforms, TAT aims to leverage this partnership to elevate the positive image of Thailand as a tourist destination and boost tourists' confidence, stimulating more travel to Thailand.

"This LOI is the largest cooperation agreement that represents the greatest coverage of travel alliance businesses in the Chinese market covering all steps of the customer journey," said Thapanee.

She said that the cooperation with eight of China's leading tourism players is expected to help strengthen cooperation in tourism-related technology for the Thai tourism industry as well as promote quality tourism to Thailand.

Ultimately, this will help reach the target of 4 million to 4.4 million Chinese tourists in 2023, generating over 200 billion Baht, and bringing the overall number of this year's tourist arrivals to 25-30 million.

From Jan 1 to Oct 15, Thailand recorded a total of 2,645,885 Chinese tourists, making it the second-largest tourist market.