Rightman Co, an event organiser, will resume developing theme park projects and place more focus on tourist destinations to turn around its sales to the pre-crisis level next year.
Upathum Nisitsukcharoen, chief executive of Rightman, said the company is talking with K.E. Land Co, the developer of Crystal Park luxury residential and the Crystal Shopping Center, for the co-creation of a "Dinoverse'' edutainment at Crystal Park.
The new edutainment project will be built on a space covering 5,000-6,000 square metres, divided into eight zones comprising Dino Plaza, Ticket Booth, Dino Era, Dino Lab, Dino Run, Dino Farm, Dino Ride and Dino Play Ground. It requires an investment of almost 100 million baht.
"I believe that tourist destinations remain attractive and an alternative place, particularly for children aged 6-12 years old because the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic for two years has wiped out several edutainment attractions and theme parks at retail complexes in downtown Bangkok from the market," said Mr Upathum, who is also president of the Event Management Association.
In addition to the edutainment theme park, Mr Upathum said his company will place a focus on developing tourist attractions in each province to cater to the recovering tourist industry.
"Because of the pandemic, Thailand's event and organising business landscape has drastically changed. Some have changed their businesses to technology, while some have to bank on foreign investors as their new stakeholders to survive after huge losses during the pandemic," he said.
According to Mr Upathum, for six months after the Covid-19 outbreak, 200-300 small event companies were estimated to have closed down their businesses due to lack of cash flow.
The second wave of Covid-19 then extended its impact to the mid-sized event companies while the third wave took its toll even on the SET-listed event organiser companies.
Event and organising management was worth 14 billion baht before the crisis and this plummeted to 3-4 billion baht last year. The market is expected to gradually improve if the pandemic situation improves, said Mr Upathum.
According to Mr Upathum, although his company has done its best to adapt its operations to cope with the pandemic over the past two years, its revenue dropped to only 400 million baht in 2019 and 2020.
Revenue slightly recovered to 480 million baht in 2021, as the company has developed many tourist attractions in each province.
"Developing tourist attractions helps lift up value to towns, so many provinces across the country are in the process of developing themselves to become tourist destinations,'' Mr Upathum said.
Ongoing projects that the company has been developing and improving during 2021 and 2022 include Nan City Arts and Cultural Centre, Roi Et Tower, Rangsit Science Centre for Education (Planetarium), Swan Lake at Night Safari in Chiang Mai, Ban Chiang Archaeological Research Center in Udon Thani and the Garuda Museum.
With such strategies, the firm expects its revenue to reach 580 million baht this year and then rise to 700-800 million baht, the same level it had before the pandemic.