• 
• 

Published on October 2, 2007

Last year, Osmep allocated Bt15 million to the TCT.

TCT president Kongkrit Hiranyakit said despite the Bt25-million claim, his agency might have to arrange activities to raise money for other projects or ask for financial help from other organisations.

The TCT's main projects include brand-image promotion for nine provincial tourism clusters; seminars to increase the competitiveness of travel-industry entrepreneurs; marketing royal-initiative projects as tourist destinations and supporting visits by tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to domestic and international trade exhibitions; working with the Office of Tourism Development to establish regulations for certification of travel-industry entrepreneurs; and setting up a system for collection of information for a travel-industry database.

Kongkrit said the brand-image project had been taken over from the Tourism Authority of Thailand. The Tourism Council has conducted public hearings in all nine provincial clusters to find the best slogans for each region, to be used not only on local products like coffee cups, magnets and soap bars, but also on rubbish bins and various signs.

Local artists have been asked to design products using the selected slogans, and prototypes will be inspected by the end of the year, he said.

The government has approved a project to promote tourism at royal-initiative projects between now and 2011, and the TCT intends to take 10 tourism industry SMEs to attend the World Travel Market in London; and another group will attend next year's ITB Berlin, an international tourism fair.

The TCT will later evaluate the results.

Kongkrit said travel-industry database information was needed for industry analysis. Discussions were being held with Sripatum University about a data-collection system.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation

Trat