17 February 2023, Bangkok – depa recently launched “Digital Tourism” and signed MoU with TAT to actively organize activities that build awareness and encompassing the use of a national digital platform ThailandCONNEX. The activities aim at promoting tourism business operators for the use of digital technology to help improve their business operations, increase marketing opportunities, and together recover Thai tourism industry in this post COVID-19 period. The campaign targeted to generate over 120 billion baht in economic worthwhile value.
Asst. Prof. Dr. Nuttapon Nimmanphatcharin, President/CEO of Digital Economy Promotion Agency (depa) announced that as depa recognized the importance of digital technology application, which can help accelerate the recovery of the Thai tourism industry that has been severely affected by the recent pandemic era, the department has launched the “Digital Tourism” to enhance activities that raise the awareness and encourage a wide use of digital platforms. In collaborating with Travizgo Technology Co., Ltd., the campaign will develop a national tourism platform called ThailandCONNEX that will act as an intermediary to connect various types of tourism business operators throughout Thailand to the use of technology and digital innovation for improving their competitiveness, increasing efficiency, reducing operation costs, and opening up more market opportunities among them.
In addition, depa recently signed an MoU with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to integrate their cooperations to revitalize and strengthen Thai tourism sector. This crucial collaboration will also sustainably drive the country's economy forward.
ThailandCONNEX comprises 3 parts including:
1. The National Digital Tourism Platform, a Business-to-Business (or wholesales) intermediary that will allow tourism operators to affectively access and present their products and services to both domestic and international tour operators.
2. The National Digital Tourism Token, a reconstruction of Blockchain technology into the Utility Token and Smart Contact System that will facilitate travel operators with buying stimulation tools to enable more repeat purchasing and networking with other business operators.
3. The National Digital Tourism Data Bank, an information collection and storage center about Thai tourism business operators, tourism products and services, attractions, communities, accommodations, restaurants, travel accessibility, and most importantly, analyses of consumer behaviors in the form of massive data. This will benefit both the government agencies and private operators in setting up effective strategies for products and services development that meet the needs of their customers.
“The Digital Tourism Campaign is depa’s 1 of 8 major campaigns in 2023. Organized under the concept DIGITAL INFINITY, the campaign aims at preparing a model guideline that will drive the country's digital economy and society forward as well as enhancing the quality of life of Thai people. This campaign will run through the ThailandCONNEX platform, our business assistant that will help increase our competitiveness and potential to reach out to the tourists worldwide. We have estimated that there will be at least 100,000 business operators joining this platform with over 200,000 tourism products and services, generating over 120 billion baht in economic value. In addition, our collaboration with TAT will parallelly help revive the Thai tourism sector, embellishing Thailand for the digital economy and society,” stated depa president/CEO.
Mr. Nithee Seeprae, TAT Deputy Governor for Digitalisation, Research and Development added that the 2022 reported 11.8 million international inbounds, a 10 million higher than targeted. In 2023, the TAT is targeting 25 million international travelers to Thailand following the country’s full opening of borders. As a main strategic driver of Thai tourism industry, TAT prioritizes the use of digital technology to propel the tourism industry, respond to new lifestyles and encourage efficient domestic traveling.
“TAT has set the digital technology plan in line with the digital Thailand national policy. We will put our efforts altogether to drive the country’s economy with digital tourism while also push through a creation of good ecosystem that helps elevate the tourism supply chain through our good knowledge and benefits gained from the world’s dynamic digital technology advancement. The collaboration between depa and TAT will make tourism a mechanism that helps stabilize the country’s economy and people’s lives along with balancing the society and environment for a sustainable tourism industry,” added TAT Deputy Governor for Digitalisation, Research and Development.
Mr. Nattaseth Wongwattanakan, CEO, Travizgo Technology Co., Ltd., said that ThailandCONNEX has been well designed to store big data under the PDPA compliance standard. It utilizes the AI technology to analyze trends, preferences and needs of the travelers to benefit the tourism business operators in designing and improving their products and services while the government agencies can also leverage this data in setting the direct effective policies and implementing promotional plans to lead quality tourism. The platform will indeed enable both the government agencies and business operators to work together and lift standards for Thai tourism. In addition, the SMEs can especially access to this new technology and grow their organic businesses along with using this ever-changing service model in the current digital age.
“Travizgo Technology has cohesively planned several nationwide marketing activities with depa, other relevant government agencies and business operators to create awareness on this technology along with finding products and services to be included in the platform. We also work with international tourism partners to promote this platform worldwide, including a collaboration with the Online Travel Agency (OTAs) that operates in various countries around the world, to create more opportunities for our Thai tourism business operators and support the thriving success of the platform,” added CEO, Travizgo Technology
The Digital Tourism Campaign and its activities to raise awareness and encourage the use of digital platforms will be organized during February – August 2023. These include the campaign marketing activities with Thai tourism business operators, the digital tourism business matching in 5 Thailand regions, the digital tourism fairs, the public relations activities through popular and effective channels, and the promotions and supports on the use of tourism technological applications and innovation.
More information please follow the campaign’s news and updates at, Website: www.thailandconnex.com, Facebook Page: ThailandCONNEX and Call Center: 0 2171 9900
