TAT turns to Marketing 3.0

‘Value-driven activities’ will reduce ad expenses

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is adjusting this year’s marketing strategy to promote ‘‘value-driven activities’’ with the aim of boosting sustainable tourism.

Sansern Ngaorungsi, the deputy governor for international marketing in Asia and South Pacific, said the TAT must catch up with new tourist behaviours and trends.

It plans to use value-driven marketing — or Marketing 3.0 as initiated by the marketing expert Philip Kotler — to encourage tourists to share tourism experiences on social media and the internet and be more responsible when visiting destinations. The TAT is confident this strategy will be effective as well as reduce its advertising expenses.

After the success of its cooking class promotion last year, the TAT will promote Thai boxing, homestays and mahout life this year to provide real-life experiences.

‘‘Thai boxing is very popular among international tourists, and we’ll use it to woo more. Some 200-300 boxing camps nationwide are supporting this campaign,’’ he said.

Marketing 3.0 is expected to cut advertising costs by 20%, which helps because Thailand’s marketing budget is lower than many rival markets such as Malaysia and Singapore. The campaign also suits individual tourists.

For the mass market, the TAT will offer via travel agents promotions for new tourist destinations to lure frequent travellers, expanding the tourist market to secondary cities.

Mr Sansern said the TAT will closely focus on key markets in Asia such as Japan, India, Hong Kong and China and seriously focus on the long-stay and youth markets.

For India, it will maintain its focus on high-end markets such as weddings and film production.

As well, it will use celebrity marketing to penetrate the golf market, hiring professional Indian golfer Jeev Milkha Singh as a presenter to promote golf in Thailand among Indian tourists.

For Hong Kong, the TAT plans to promote Thailand as an everyday destination, as there are now 17 flights a day.

It will promote new destinations to Chinese tourists to reduce the crowds in Phuket, Pattaya and Bangkok.

The TAT expects the number of Asian tourist arrivals will grow by 17% to 14.6 million this year, mainly on the back of an influx of Chinese travellers.