THAILAND’S Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MoTS) is revising its budget plan for the next fiscal year in a bid to gain an extra 10.6 billion baht (US$354 million) in funds from the new government.
MoTS was previously allocated a budget of 16.6 billion baht by the immediate past cabinet for the period October 2011 to September 2012, much less than the 30 billion baht it was seeking.
MoTS permanent-secretary, Sombat Kuruphan, said the revised figure of around 27.2 billion baht would help propel the country’s tourism marketing and development efforts to meet the government’s annual target of 30 million arrivals and two trillion baht in tourism revenue.
The ministry plans to allocate some 3.6 billion baht to the Department of Tourism and about 8.6 billion baht to the Tourism Authority of Thailand. It will also ask the new government to boost the Thailand Tourism Fund from 50 million to 300 million baht.
Sombat added that the extra funds would help to prepare the country’s tourism industry for integration into the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015, the year from which MoTS is hoping to be granted an improved annual budget of 100 billion baht (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 8).
