Mr Thanawat Phonwichai, the chancellor of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) and advisor to the university’s Centre for Economic and Business Forecasting, said the 22.4 billion baht tourism initiative will help to boost domestic spending by between 30-50 billion baht depending on Thai tourists’ spending behavior in the remaining months this year. According to the Centre for Economic and Business Forecasting, it found that one-third of Thai people want to travel and tend to spend 2,000 – 3,000 baht each.
However, the plan to boost domestic spending depends on tourists’ behavior because people who like to travel, do so with or without tourism aid. The key to the aid is to attract tourists to spend more than usual, as people who are not into travel are likely not to spend more or not spend at all. Therefore, 22.4 billion baht is considered a small price to boost that much domestic spending.
If the government wants to revive the country’s economy, it must compensate for the figure that’s been lost during the COVID-19 outbreak. The most effective way to do that is via the ‘Travel Bubble’ project intended to draw foreign tourists from countries that have demonstrated good control of COVID-19, because of the usual 3 trillion-baht Thailand earns every year from tourism, 2 trillion baht is from foreign tourists. (NNT)
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