Academic:Tourism should play important roles in place of Thai exports

BANGKOK, August 28 (TNA) - A leading academic has proposed that Thailand's tourism play important roles in place of exports and tourist destinations be developed before the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. Ath Phisanwanit, Director of the Center for International Trade Studies of Bangkok-based University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, aired the proposal on Tuesday. Ath referred to an updated study showing that the most popular tourist destination in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) last year was Malaysia with over 25 million international visitors, followed by Thailand with more than 22 million international visitors, who spent over 980 billion baht, and Singapore with 14 million international visitors. Ath assessed that Malaysia should remain the top destination in ASEAN after 2015 due to more favourable factors, projecting that the number of international visitors to Thailand should increase to 27 million by 2015, earning the country more than 1.22 trillion baht of tourism-related revenues then. According to the academic, the number of international visitors to Thailand is also anticipated to increase to 34.5 million by 2020 and Thailand's tourism-related revenues should exceed 1.65 trillion baht then, with Chinese visitors to form the lion's share of the international visitors to the country. The senior academic also predicted that the growth rate of international visitors to Myanmar should be the fastest in ASEAN, by 38.3 per cent, by 2015 and 57.8 per cent by 2020. The senior academic suggested that Thailand effectively manage tourism resources, promote safety, introduce public high-speed internet services, improve public transit systems, especially high-speed trains, and warmly welcome Chinese tourists whose arrivals have grown fastest, as the Thai tourism has earned the Kingdom significantly, in place of exports, over the past few years. (TNA)