Road to Recovery: THAI to donate free seats

Thai Airways will spearhead a huge familiarisation campaign to persuade about 1,000 international travel and media figures that the kingdom’s acute political crisis is over.

The flag carrier will fly the visitors to Thailand in July, while others, including the Tourism Authority of Thailand, hospitality and retail industries, plan campaigns to show the world that Thailand is back on track.

The latest mega-fam would outstrip a similar campaign staged in October 2008 – before the yellow-shirt protesters’ seizure of Bangkok’s airports – to counter the twin setbacks of an oil-price spike and political turmoil in Thailand.

The 2008 campaign offered 2008 free trips, all paid for by THAI, for tourism decision-makers, says the Bangkok Post.

Andrew Wood, general manager of Bangkok’s Chaophya Park Hotel & Resorts, said, “I know when the travel industry says we are back, and it’s safe to travel in Thailand, of course many think it’s a sales pitch, but really we are back.

“Getting the message beyond the travel and tourism industry is our greatest challenge today and this will take time as consumer confidence has been eroded.

“But we are back…occupancy is lifting daily (Chaophya Park is 63 percent today) and our local MICE and seminar and training meetings, including weddings, are taking place.”

Wood said loyal and regular guests have returned. “They are the ones that really know Thailand, and daily life on the streets, on the river, in our wonderful temples and streets markets, in the shopping malls…it’s all normal.”