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 last week.
These included Huawei Technologies, Trip.com Group, Meituan.com, Spring Airlines, Sina News, Alipay, iQIYI, and Jego Trip.
The cooperation with eight of China’s leading tourism players, including top tech companies, online tourism platforms, airlines, and online banking, is expected to help strengthen cooperation in tourism-related technology for the Thai tourism industry as well as promote quality tourism to Thailand.
Thavisin 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.”
To facilitate Chinese travellers, the visa exemption scheme has been put in place from now to February 29, 2024, to help reach the target of four to 4.4 million Chinese tourists in 2023, generate over 200 billion baht, and bring the overall number of this year’s tourist arrivals to 25-30 million.
As the largest cooperation agreement that represents the greatest coverage of travel alliance businesses in the Chinese market covering all steps of the customer journey, TAT aims to leverage these LOIs to elevate Thailand as a tourist destination, boost Chinese tourists’ confidence, and roll out tourism promotions to stimulate more travel to Thailand.
