The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is capturing the high-end European market by partnering with luxury brands to produce city guidebooks in order to maximise tourism revenue to reach the new upgraded target in 2025.
Suriya Sitthichai, director of the TAT's Paris office, said the office would allocate around 12 million baht in 2025 to its flagship marketing programme targeting the luxury market in France and Benelux, which have high spending potential.
One of these projects will include partnering with luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Cartier in organising press trips as well as luxury lifestyle events.
The agency will cooperate with Louis Vuitton in December to prepare a new city guidebook for Thailand, said Mr Suriya.
The Bangkok city guide was published over 10 years ago, along with other global cities guidebooks.
This project will help promote recognition of Thailand at the global level, he said.
Other projects include partnerships with leading media on the continent, such as Marie Claire, Le Monde magazine and Le Figaro magazine to promote content regarding luxury travel in Thailand, with the aim of reaching 150,000 high-spending travellers.
The office will also conduct joint promotions and site inspections with 20-30 tourism operators to help them design luxury tour packages with prices of at least €4,500 (165,442 baht) per person, targeting families.
In 2024, the French market is estimated to have spent around 64,804 baht per trip on average, while the spending of visitors from the Netherlands and Belgium stood at 72,857 baht and 67,734 baht, respectively.
The TAT's Paris office is aiming for 1.27 million arrivals next year, comprising 846,000 French nationals, 299,000 Dutch citizens and 125,000 Belgians.
ITA Airways opened a new route from Rome to Bangkok on Nov 16, operating five days a week, and THAI will resume Brussels-Bangkok flights in December.
Earlier this month, Tourism Minister Sorawong Thienthong held a meeting with all of the TAT's offices in Europe.
The ministry revised up the foreign market for 2025 to 40 million visitors from 39 million, generating 2.4 trillion baht revenue, up from 2.23 trillion baht earlier.
Based on the new goal, the TAT is targeting 11 million long-haul visitors, including 8.2 million European tourists.
Total expenditure from the long-haul market has been upgraded to 960 billion baht from 865 billion baht.
The European market should record 700 billion baht revenue based on its best-case level of performance.
Other TAT offices also proposed strategies to capture high-quality tourism markets, such as sustainable and local experience travel for tourists from Nordic countries by the TAT's Stockholm office, and premium honeymoon trips for South European tourists by the TAT's Rome office.