THE Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Moscow Office and 13 major tour operators in Russia are rolling out promotions and new charter flights next month to bring high-end Russian travellers into the South-east Asian nation for the winter season.
Thawatchai Arunyik, TAT governor, said in a press release: “We expect that these special winter charter flights and a range of exciting winter promotions that will be launched and promoted in September, will help to encourage travellers from Russia and countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to make a trip to Thailand. Russia and CIS are one of the largest markets to Thailand.”
The NTO is introducing some 3,240 charters from 35 cities across Russia and the CIS, including Moscow, St Petersburg, Kiev, Almaty and Astana, to take tourists to a range of Thai cities such as Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi.
Despite US- and Europe-imposed sanctions on Russia for its role in the political unrest in Ukraine, Russian arrivals to Thailand have not wavered (TTG Asia e-Daily, August 18, 2014).
Russian arrivals totalled one million from January to July 2014, a 6.5 per cent year-on-year increase, but posted 32.7 per cent growth for full-year 2013 with 1.7 million arrivals.
Said Thawatchai: “For the entire 2014, TAT expects the number of visitor arrivals from Russia to total 1.9 million, or a 9.8 per cent increase over 2013.”
