THAILAND TRAVEL NEWS: Thailand’s Tourism and Sports Minister Chumpol Silpa-archa has predicted the country will welcome 16 million tourists in 2010, saying the Thai economy was showing positive signs of improvement.

Mr Chumpol said he thought the country “has already passed the worst, including the airport closures in late 2008, the cancellation of the Asean Summit in Pattaya and political violence in April.

“It is expected that the tourism industry will clearly improve next year on condition there are no new incidents,” he said.

The prediction by the minister coincided with the appointment of Suraphon Svetasreni as the new governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, filling a post that has remained vacant for more than eight months.

Mr Suraphon said TAT has set a target of between 15 million and 15.5 million foreign tourist arrivals for 2010, generating revenue of between Bt560 to Bt570 billion (about $US17 billion). This compares to the TATs latest revised estimate of 13.5 million foreign inbound tourists for the 2009 year, a drop of 7.4 percent on last year.

At the same time the TAT is forecasting the number of trips by domestic tourists will increase from 87 million this year to 90 million in 2010, resulting in a Bt30 billion ($899.5 million) revenue increase from this sector to about Bt430 billion (about $12.9 billion) in 2010.

To help bolster the tourism industry the current visa-free scheme which is scheduled to end in March 2010 is likely to be be continued until at least the end of next year.

In addition, the ministry also plans to promote medical tourism to the kingdom as a specific vertical market, and tackle the problem of illegal taxis.

By Jon Le Fevre

Thailand Travel News for December 28, 2009