With cheap flights and even cheaper private van services, people appear to all but shun using buses as a mode of long-distance travel.
Not so, says one woman who has been at the helm of a family public transport business that has been running for more than 60 years.
"I believe that the bus transport business will never die," says Kruawan Wongrukmit, the 52-year-old chief executive of Nakhonchai Air, which operates passenger bus services to the northern and northeastern regions of Thailand.
Mrs Kruawan acknowledges that more people are switching from buses to low-cost airlines because of cheaper costs and faster travel times.
She strongly believes, however, that there is still room for other types of transport to grow.
"Aeroplanes cannot take you everywhere you want to go. As a result, other forms of transport like buses can continue to grow," Mrs Kruawan says.
Although she remains confident her bus business will thrive, Mrs Kruawan admits there are many things that need to improve in order to lure passengers away from air travel, vans, and rival bus companies.
The third of five children, Mrs Kruawan has been helping her father run the family business for more than 30 years.
Nakhonchai Air has expanded its bus services by offering several travel classes, ranging from normal to air-conditioned buses; first-class, which comes with food; and gold-class, which has more legroom and seats that recline substantially.
"We changed the image of bus services in 1992 when we introduced different classes with several additional services, including future discounts accrued through previous trips with us," she says.
But as the competition between her business and low-cost airlines intensified, she decided to diversify the family business by offering a taxi service under the name "All Thai Taxi".
"All Thai Taxi is one of our attempts to adjust ourselves to meet the changing trend and styles of travels," Mrs Kruawan says.
Mrs Kruawan Wongrukkmit, chief executive offecer of Nakhonchai Air/ creator Apichit Jinakul
Launched last year, the service allows passengers to call up a taxi via an app. The taxis also are also installed with a global positioning system to address passengers' safety concerns while in route to their destinations.
"We have had a very good response since the debut with customers sometimes complaining when we are short of taxis. When demand is higher than supply, that is a good sign," she says.
To meet demand, Mrs Kruawan says the company plans to increase its total number of taxis to 500 this year, up from 300.
She says the company is also looking beyond Thailand's borders to see if it can tap into the benefits of the newly integrated Asean Economic Community (AEC).
She first looked at neighbouring Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar to invest in the bus transport business, but later decided against the move.
"We found that there are risks and complicated legislative details on taxes and other regulations so we decided to change the plan."
In the end, the company decided to seek local partners in targeted countries as well as expand its services: bus passengers will travel from Bangkok to the Thai borders where they will be transferred to buses operated by the company's partners for forward travel.
"After a feasibility study, we have decided on the best locations on the borders for the transport link into neighbouring countries," she says.
There will be a link station in Chiang Rai connecting to Myanmar, while Nan, Nong Khai, Mudkahan, Nakhon Phanom and Ubon Ratchathani will be the linking stations for Laos.
Mrs Kruawan says the service to transport passengers to neighbouring states is due to start this year.
"The opening up of the economy under the AEC will encourage people from member countries to travel more often, which will provide great business opportunities for us. We need to know what we can do to benefit from the AEC," she says.
Preparing its workforce to deal with people other AEC countries is the company's first priority.
"With more foreigners coming in, we need to prepare our workers to speak more than two languages. The first language that our employees should know is that of the neighbouring countries. The second is English and the third one should be Mandarin -- the official Chinese language -- and other mainland dialects," she says. Mandarin is a global language, coming from a country that has strong influence on the Asean region, she adds.
Not satisfied with just the transport business, Nakhonchai Air is now setting its sights on the hotel sector in its latest diversification plan.
"It may look like we are switching to another business, which we do not have any expertise in. It's not true. In fact, both the hotel and bus transport business fall under the same sector of providing services," she says.
The All Thai Taxi service launched last year is in such great demand now that Nakhonchai Air plans to add another 200 taxis to its current fleet of 300. tawatchai Kemgumnerd
Mrs Kruawan says the idea is to set up a hotel to serve demand for the company's passengers who will need to rest before continuing on their journeys, either for business or pleasure.
The company plans to spend around 10-20 million baht to build new 3-star hotels in major cities around the country, which should be located near company bus stations.
"They will be a clean, comfortable, with all facilities such as WiFi, and priced below 1,000 baht per night," she says. The hotel business would be another sector that would help support the bus business, which will remain the company's core business.
"And if there are no problems or any major obstacles, we expect that we could be listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in the next few years," Mrs Kruawan says with great confidence.