The Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) expects to earn 152 million baht from Thailand Incentive and Meeting Exchange 2019 (TIME 2019), an annual event promoting meetings and incentives that runs until Sunday.
Chiruit: Expanding this year's event
Chiruit Isarangkun Na Ayuthaya, the TCEB president, said that as Asean chair Thailand has expanded the event this year to the Asean+6 countries (adding China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India).
He said TCEB aims to stimulate Thai Mice, one of the tourism services that contributed 213 billion baht from some 34 million local and international visitors last fiscal year.
In fiscal 2019's first half, which ended March 31, Thailand welcomed 594,663 foreign Mice travellers who contributed 44 billion baht, up 8.6% and 4.4% respectively from the same period last year, Mr Chiruit said.
Of the figures, some 163,500 visitors headed for meetings and 185,000 came for incentives, contributing 15 billion baht and 10 billion baht to the industry accordingly.
Travellers from the Asean+6 countries for meetings and incentives (MI) stood at 303,000, generating 22 billion baht, accounting for 90% of total MI visitors in the fiscal first half.
The highest tally of Mice travellers from an Asean+6 country was from China, followed by Japan, Malaysia, India and Indonesia.
Mr Chiruit said TIME 2019 has the theme of "Togetherness" because of partnerships with the Thailand Incentive and Convention Association, the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence, Thai Airways International Plc (THAI), Bangkok Airways and BMW.
Nipatorn Singhagan, special leisure manager for THAI, said the flag carrier has joined the TCEB on the Asean MaxiMICE campaign for groups of Mice travellers of at least 40 people from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines from February to September 2019.
"Most airline customers who travel in groups are Mice travellers," she said. "So we established a Mice department especially for these travellers."
The airline has received positive feedback, with more than 1,000 passengers from Singapore in 2019.
Plernpis Kosolutasarn, director of marketing promotion at Bangkok Airways, said the "boutique" airline's Fly and Meet Double Bonus Redefined campaign focuses on MI travellers from CLMV countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam) with a minimum of 30 people per group who stay in Thailand at least two nights, from January to September this year.
The campaign has stirred the interest of Mice travellers, especially from CLMV second-tier provinces.