THAILAND’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MoTS) is planning to ask the newly-elected government to grant it an annual budget of 100 billion baht (US$3.3 billion), up from the current 20 billion baht allocation.
MoTS permanent-secretary Sombat Kuruphan said the increased budget would help it achieve its target of 30 million foreign arrivals and one trillion baht in annual tourism revenue by 2015, when Thailand will be fully integrated into the ASEAN Economic Community.
He said the ministry would also seek to increase the budget for its tourism development plan (TTG Asia e-Daily, March 4) from 6.65 billion baht to 10 billion baht.
The tourism plan, to be executed between 2012 and 2014, covers 385 tourism development projects in eight tourism clusters, for the upgrade of basic infrastructure, landscaping and convenience at tourist sites nationwide.
