Pata beefs up team to cash in on boom

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata) Thailand Chapter is revamping its organisation to be more modern, with input from local people to improve the fastgrowing tourism industry.

With more than 40 years in the tourism industry, Pata Thailand is now attracting young, enthusiastic people to become executive committee members.

They include Justin Malcolm, general manager of Aloft Hotels Bangkok, Siradej Donavanik from Dusit International and Ben Montgomery from Centara Hotels and Resorts.

Pata, which is a member of the Tourism Council of Thailand, expects the move will build a better team to develop the tourism sector.

Bert van Walbeek, chairman of Pata Thailand, said the teamwork will help increase bargaining power for the industry.

Pata will hold seminars to introduce the new team and brainstorm hot issues as it seeks to inform people about the importance of tourism to the economy.

In collaboration with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the Kasikorn Research Center, Pata will launch a ‘‘Complete Visitor Economy’’ awareness campaign to reiterate that tourism plays an important role in the country’s development.

A World Travel & Tourism Council report said the direct contribution of travel and tourism to Thailand’s gross domestic product (GDP) was 826 billion baht (7.3% of GDP) last year.

The figure is forecast to rise by 6.2% this year and by 6.8% per year until 2023 when it will reach about 1.7 trillion baht.

The indirect contribution of tourism was 1.89 trillion baht (16.7% of GDP) last year. It is estimated to increase by 7.4% this year and by 6.5% per year to 3.83 trillion baht in 2023.

In 2012, the contribution of tourism to employment including jobs indirectly supported by the industry was 4.81 million jobs or 12.4% of total employment. This is expected to rise by 9.4% this year to 5.27 million jobs and by 3.6% per year to 7.52 million jobs in 2023 (17.5% of total). Ad spending is expected to show flat growth in the second half of this year, as the Thai economy is showing no positive signs of growth.

Rathakorn Surbsuk, a trading partner at GroupM Thailand, the New Yorkbased media ad company, said many advertisers are cutting back on ad spending on the back of expected low second-half consumption.

People’s purchasing power has declined in the wake of government stimulus policies such as the first-time car buyer scheme, he said.

As well, the local economic outlook remains uncertain, with no new positive factors to shore up growth.

Nielsen Co (Thailand) reported firsthalf ad spending rose by 1.7% yearon-year to 55.4 billion baht.

Mr Rathakorn forecasts total spending on TV commercials will grow by 7% this year on the six free-TV channels.

Spending on cable and satellite TV