BANGKOK, March 24 – The Thai private sector estimated Thais would opt for travelling within the country during the Songkran festival holiday season due to more careful spending after home repairs during Jan-Mar from the recent flood crisis.
The Association of Domestic Travel (ADT) president Maiyarat Pheerayakoses noted local tourism has seen about 70% of hotels, tour packages, airlines already booked during the traditional Thai New Year period. Such a figure is satisfactory, she said, adding local tourism during this season has not been fully occupied for the past 4-5 years owing to the unstable political situations.
Ms Maiyarat said the recent haze in northern Thailand is not a big problem which will affect Thai tourism, as it is a natural cause.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA) Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn said that Thais choosing to travel within the country has resulted in a lower number of Chinese travellers flying chartered flights to Thailand.
He said there were usually over a hundred chartered flights from China every year during the Songkran holiday, but this year’s figure of about 50 flights already booked was not eye-catching, adding the number of chartered flights into Thailand has to be also balance out with the number of chartered flights carrying Thai travellers out of the country.
