Does the “2015 Discover Thainess” campaign really target foreign tourist markets?

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Written by Linda Hohnholz

BANGKOK, Thailand (eTN) – The “2015 Discover Thainess” campaign kicked off late last week with a lavish launching including a two-hour parade in the city center of Bangkok attended by Prime Minist

BANGKOK, Thailand (eTN) – The “2015 Discover Thainess” campaign kicked off late last week with a lavish launching including a two-hour parade in the city center of Bangkok attended by Prime Minister Prayut Cha-Ochan and Minister of Tourism and Sports Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul. In his inaugural speech, General Prayuth emphasized – in Thai language – how friendly and welcoming Thai people are towards foreign travelers and how diverse the Thai culture is. The “Discover Thainess” year will supposedly enable foreign visitors to enjoy a glimpse of real Thai life and its culture, through traditional activities such as gastronomy, Thai boxing, Thai textiles, and Thai well-being and the art of massage. A dozen destinations, incarnating the true soul of the Thai culture, are due to be promoted while local festivals are due to be promoted as well.

However, the Thainess concept raises questions. Promoting gastronomy, Thai boxing, and Thai spas is not a new concept. According to a Thai expert, these themes have already been used for more than a decade, and the current campaign does not present anything new to travelers. Only the promotion of some new destinations for foreign travelers, such as Loei and Lampang in the north, Trat in the east, or Buriram in Isan, would help show different aspects of the kingdom.

The Thainess Festival, organized in Lumpini Park in the center of Bangkok, was a rather disappointing event and had more the atmosphere of a typical goods fair or of a night market in any secondary city. The quality of products sold at the festival – from super-heroes tee-shirts to frozen yogurts, and from soft toys to plastic utensils – had little to do with Thailand’s sophisticated handicrafts or textiles. In fact, the festival was more targeting Thai people than foreign visitors.

And this is where there is a possible distortion of the “2015 Discover Thainess” concept. The “international” campaign runs, in fact, in parallel with a domestic campaign launched by the Thai government to instill a sense of Thai values again to Thai people. Education programs in schools have, for example, been recently overhauled to infuse in the mind of Thai youth, 12 newly-redefined core values of Thainess.

In his speech, Prime Minister Prayuth emphasized that “Thailand must become a strong nation where the people of all classes become stable and prosperous. […] The vision prioritizing strength, prosperity, and sustainability would be implemented in a five-year period (2015-2019) to make Thailand a land of smiles […]The kingdom is famous for its royal institution and its rich, deep-rooted culture in which the Thai people should take pride for. These characteristics could never be destroyed with everyone in the society bending forces to make Thailand more recognized internationally.”
The Prime Minister believes “once the country has more revenues and the people earn higher incomes, Thai society as a whole will become better. Nevertheless, an important thing is to respect and uphold the royal institution and be grateful for the contributions the royal institution has made to all Thais. Together, everyone must unite and carry on the traditions.”

“Thainess” seems then to be more a political tool wrapped in an international marketing campaign towards world-wide travelers. It will at least have a positive effect: some tourists might learn more about secondary destinations such as Loei, Surat Thani, and Buriram. It will be interesting to see if the Tourism Authority of Thailand will conduct a survey to assess the success of the “2015 Discover Thainess” campaign on its main inbound markets.

About the author

Avatar of Linda Hohnholz

Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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