Candidates for the Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT) presidency have vowed to lift tourism receipts to 5 trillion baht in five years and strengthen collaboration between private sectors, reconciling with large tourism associations who previously exited the council, as the election approaches next week.
Held every two years, the TCT's committee election is heating up with four presidential candidates.
Among them, two candidates are expected to vie for the presidency: Thanate Vorasaran, current TCT vice-president and committee chair of the high-quality tourism board at the Thai Chamber of Commerce and Thai Board of Trade; and Chai Arunanondchai, vice-president of Thai Federation of Provincial Tourist Associations (TFOPTA) and president of Samut Prakan Tourism Development Association.
"If elected, I would aim for the challenging goal of 5 trillion baht in tourism revenue, from both international and domestic markets, within five years," said Mr Thanate.
With the target nearly doubling from the 2.6 trillion baht revenue of 2024, Mr Thanate said there is still an opportunity, particularly from the inbound market which recorded 1.3 billion tourists worldwide in 2023.
During his 18-year experience at the TCT, he said he once achieved a similar goal, helping the country double its tourism revenue to 2 trillion baht in 2014, while serving as vice-president between 2011 and 2014.
"To accomplish this goal, TCT will create a tourism integration plan to seek collaboration between related agencies and ministries, and allocate the budget based on tourist demand," said Mr Thanate.
Increasing revenue would benefit operators across all scales and different destinations, he said.
Mr Thanate would also enhance more cooperation from regional associations, who can reflect the key problems of each destination better, by setting up 41 regional committees, and help those scattered networks reunite with the large associations.
Meanwhile, Mr Chai said many pain points for regional tourism have not been solved by the government.
Mr Chai has promised to reform the TCT's internal structure in order to fix collaborations between members.
Since the pandemic, the authority has likely focused only on particular provinces or regions, without fairly distributing development budgets to other potential destinations.
"I plan to assign an academic researching team to study the potential of each province in collaboration with regional associations to improve second-tier cities, promoting new regional products for overseas markets, which could now only penetrate the domestic market," he said.
Other projects include gastronomy, green and wellness tourism, along with the development of public facilities and infrastructure which help distribute tourists.
He will also reform the TCT's internal structure to fix collaborations between members, particularly reconciling with seven large tourism associations who quit the TCT in 2023.
This year, 181 association members are eligible to vote for the TCT's 13 committees in the tourism professional sector, and another 13 committees in the regional sector.
Some 26 elected committees will select another eight special committees for a total of 34 committees casting their votes for the new TCT president.
Mr Thanate said he's confident he will secure at least 100 votes as he has gained support from both the professional sector and regional sector.
However, Mr Chai's candidacy has been supported by TFOPTA, which has more than 200 associations, of which 80-90% were TCT members.
The other two candidates are Somchai Jearanaisilp, TCT vice-president, and Virintra Papakityotsaphat, president of the Tourism Council of Phuket.
