TAT expands online marketing

TOURISM

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) says it will use more technology and the internet to increase the effectiveness of its marketing and promotion campaigns.

The TAT’s Amazing Thailand Facebook page has attracted 201,392 followers to date.

“More online campaigns should be launched as international tourists look up information from the internet,” said Thapanee Kiatphaibool, the TAT’s director for the marketing information technology group.

At present, the number of internet users worldwide is estimated at about 2.1 billion and that of mobile users is 1.4 billion. Smartphone users are projected to number around 450 million next year.

“We will also apply customer relationship management (CRM) on many channels such as websites, social networks, mobile applications and games. Good CRM will help us collect data to create more targeted marketing campaigns in future,” she said.

It is expected that attractive marketing campaigns will help increase tourist awareness and drive the number of repeat visitors to Thailand.

The TAT’s key “quality” markets include families, generations X and Y, women and senior citizens. Primary markets are medical, wedding, eco-tourism and golf, while alternative markets are Mice and expatriates.

Ms Thapanee said the TAT would do country-specific marketing campaigns. For example, the TAT has collaborated with local travel agents in China to promote Thailand destinations on well-known blogs.

At present, page views of most national tourism organisations worldwide are decreasing because tourists and internet users prefer to gather information on social media or blogs. Therefore, the TAT is focusing more seriously on social media.

“Our Facebook page has links to all TAT portals. This helps draw visitors to our website and we hope that will motivate them to travel in Thailand,” Ms Thapanee said.

This year, the TAT expects the number of page views for its website to increase by 20-25% to 58-59 million and unique IPs will rise by 18-20% to 7.5 million. In July, TAT website drew 6.45 million hits and unique IPs of 927,673, compared to 4.422 million page views and 665,568 unique IPs in June.

In terms of traffic, the top five national tourism organisations in the region are those of Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia respectively.

Mobile application development is also important because mobile apps could help reach the high-end market, said Ms Thapanee.

The TAT will highlight applications via iPhone, iPad and Android-based devices, focusing on the wedding, medical and golf markets.

The agency has invested 10 million baht in social media. It has 253,010 fans and followers via Twitter and Facebook, up from 112,801 last September.

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About the author

Writer: Chadamas Chinmaneevong
Position: Reporter

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