“The White Lotus is huge. It's a very scenery-driven show, and there are compelling stories behind that. It creates an aura.” As The White Lotus season 3 prepares to air, how is Thailand using various aspects of soft power to reposition itself as a tourism destination? This week's show comes from Gary's other podcast, High-Yield Tourism, on which he and Dr Jens Thraenhart speak to global thought leaders about how tourism strategy and development are changing in the post-Covid era. In this episode, Chattan Kunjara, Former Deputy Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, discusses how Thailand is promoting the 5Fs - food, fight (May Thai), fashion, film and festivals - in tourism as part of its national branding. Khun Chattan takes us behind the scenes of Thailand's reopening strategy and how, in his words, "Covid changed everything for Thai tourism." He also provides fascinating insights about the inner travel and tourism workings of South East Asia's most-visited nation.
The South East Asia Travel Show
Using the 5Fs, White Lotus, Lalisa & Soft Power to Reposition Thai Tourism, with Chattan Kunjara, Tourism Authority of Thailand
Hello and Happy New Year of the Wood Snake. Although the Southeast Asia travel show is taking a break for the Lunar New Year holidays, we've got a special edition for you. This comes from my other podcast called High Yield Tourism, on which Dr. Yen's Trainheart and I speak to global thought leaders about how travel and tourism policy, strategy and destination marketing is changing in this new post-COVID era. In this edition, we speak to Kunchatankunjara, former Deputy Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Kunchatank talks in detail about how Thailand has repositioned itself as a tourism destination since reopening from the long border closure. As he himself says during the podcast, COVID changed absolutely everything for tourism in Thailand. So what happened next? Hello and thanks for listening in. Today we're delighted to welcome Kunchatankunjara, former Deputy Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. During a 37-year career, Kunchatankun was at the forefront of Thailand's conversion to become one of the world's most popular tourism destinations. And then came COVID, and Thailand had to navigate unprecedented circumstances for its highly valuable tourism industry. As this new era unfolds, competition to attract tourists is becoming stronger, not just in Southeast Asia, but around Asia-Pacific. And Thailand is having to rethink the way that it attracts tourists and engages them once they come to the country. Kunchatankun, how do you define high-year tourism in the context of Thailand's tourism strategy? Well, Kunchatankunj, for a lot of years, we based that on the income that an individual would get during the year. So he may have a high-ranking position in a company, he may have assets, it would amount to, say, perhaps a million dollars a year or something like that. But then we found that was hard to ascertain. How do you know who earns what during the year? So I think eventually we shifted to how much they are spending in a country when they travel. So I think eventually we settled on something like $500 a night, a day, or something, including accommodation, shopping, food, and everything. To me, I think that's a more, I can't say accurate, but it's closer to what we need to see. Rather than basing it on the revenue that a person generates by himself or herself, we look at how they spend when they travel. No, I think that's obviously very interesting and a lot of destinations look, I think, at high-yield tourism really more at the, almost like luxury tourism, side of it. And obviously there's some ability to that, but I think we are looking also at the contribution to the local economy and the economic value. But Thailand obviously is a great destination with a really strong tourism brand, but also with some very aggressive visitor targets. So why is it important for Thailand to transition from this focus of mass tourism to more high-yield tourism strategy? Well, that's a very good question. I think it comes down to carrying capacity. You were in Thailand for a number of years. You would have seen that a lot of places just weren't able to handle a large number of visitors throughout the year or even for a certain period of time. Okay, so that is the basics of mass tourism. So it means that you have to get a lot of people in and hopefully through the numbers that will become, you will meet your revenue target, even though each individual or each group may not spend that much, but you reach it by sheer numbers. In essence, that is not sustainable, as we all know, okay, because the infrastructure of the destination, whether it's a province, whether it's a community, whether it's a beach, it cannot keep up with transportation, sanitation, what have you. So everything cannot keep up. And eventually you find that there's environmental degradation, there's safety issues and so on and so forth. Okay, so I mean, some places, Kunians in Thailand, I mean, can handle a certain number, okay, but a lot of places can, especially the secondary cities, provinces that we want to push people to. Therefore, the thinking is that, of course, we cannot tell people not to come, okay, those people that comes in groups, you know, large numbers, they will continue to come. But there's always an opportunity to get high yield visitors to certain areas at a certain time of the year to do certain things. That is the Thailand tourism's mindset at the moment. I'm very interested to learn about how your strategy has changed since the pandemic. During the pandemic, you yourself were very transparent. You did a lot of interviews, presentations, talking about Thailand really wanted to get tourism back. It was at the forefront really in Southeast Asia of that push to bring back tourism after the pandemic. How did it change the thinking in terms of tourism strategy and high yield tourism for the future? It changed everything, Kunghari. That's something I like to talk about always. You know how it changed. Before COVID, no, T-A-T essentially was the, we still are. You know, it still is the marketing agency. Our job was to push people to the provinces to each destination. And then the provinces, the local governments have to figure out, you know, how to handle the people, okay, that's their job. Okay, not essentially our job. Okay, we did our job, getting people to come and to go. What experience they get, the visitors get, that's really not us, Ben, right? But when COVID came, this is very interesting. The destinations, especially the provinces, they had to say whether they wanted to open again to tourism and how we could not move a finger if they said no. We had to get their approval. And in that case, we had to go down and talk to each and every one of the people there, you know, from the local government to the village headsmen to everyone involved, where there are number one very simple question, do you want travelers to go? Okay, because think back, and it seems like ancient history now, but think back, this is only like three or four years ago, right? People were really afraid of COVID. The foreigners, are they bringing COVID? Are we safe? You know, it's a simple question. Okay, do you want visitors? Are you willing to accept a certain amount of risk? If you want visitors, how? Okay, in what fashion? Who do you want to come? So it was a lengthy process of negotiations, creating understanding, and it was slow process, but it was necessary. And if you remember correctly, if you recall, we could not open the whole country. Okay, we have to go city by city, which we never had to do, can Gary, I couldn't yes, you know, before COVID, the whole country was open for travel, right? But then everything closed down. So we had to select Puket first, followed by Gosamui and then Para Yash and my blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so that, like I said, to make a long story short, COVID changed everything. It compelled us, it compelled the government to talk to the stakeholders. I don't want to say that didn't happen before, but it happened really continuously and in depth, you know, once COVID came and we're still doing that. That's fascinating insight. So once you had reopened, once you'd gone through this process of working out how regions and how local authorities would handle going forward, you then reopened into what became very competitive regional landscape. Everybody was opening around about this thing. I'm one of the next phase. How did you then take it forward to develop? Because, you know, tourists have come back very, very quickly to Thailand. How has the strategy changed? Well, titurism pride ourselves very much on segmentation. Even before COVID, we did a lot of segmentation research. We went after certain segments, including high yield travelers. And in that sense, when the competition bloomed, if you will, like you said, you know, segmentation was our strong point. You know, we just could not open to everyone. We could not accept everyone. Okay, so we went after a few segments in a few countries. Okay, it was a step-by-step approach. And I thought that was the difference. You know, a lot of countries, they opened it to, well, I'm not naming names, but to everyone everywhere, right? And for us, that wasn't sustainable. Okay, so we had to go to certain markets and get certain segments to come. I think segmentation, obviously, is fascinating. And there are lots of destinations that are looking at that. And I think what's unique about Thailand strategy is this whole shift towards soft power. And when Thailand introduced the five Fs food, five fashion festivals and film, which essentially are kind of integrated into segmentation, if you're looking to get wellness travelers, adventure travelers, culinary travelers, and so on. So what role really have the five Fs played, essence to drive a tourism strategy and really building Thailand's tourism brand, unique positioning? I love five Fs. You know, let me say it right from the start. I didn't originate the idea, obviously, but I was embracing. My team was embracing five Fs. Why? Okay, we, you know, for on and off for a lot of years, we were selling soft power. We just didn't say soft power, but we were, you know, promoting food. We were promoting a lot of stuff, you know, that that you find in your everyday life in Thailand. Okay, but with five Fs with the soft power, we were repackaging everything, okay, into a nice, neat, easily understandable, easily digestible package. When I say package, it means that the consumers, they could understand better. They could visualize what they will find when they come to Thailand. Obviously, Koon Yens and Koon Gary, it's good, you know, amazing Thailand, exotic Thailand, whatever, but it doesn't tell you what you can find, you know, it's, it's, it's the vision, the dream, right? But with soft power, we're selling or promoting products, tangible products, okay, which the visitors can find in your daily trips here in the country, food, fashion, fight, meaning Muay Thai, okay, festivals, if you come during a festival time, and film, meaning film locations, okay, that's, that's very easily understandable, okay. But the game changer, guys, is not only for the consumers, it's how we market. As marketers, it makes the job a lot easier for us because then we can focus on a few things. It's, it's not an overarching, you know, dream concept of amazing that, amazing that, you know, whatever, you know. This time, we were able to focus on a Thai and just add in Patai during Song Gran, in Chiang Mai, for example, you know, so it's, it was a amalgamation of many things which we, we could sell, you know, directly to consumers, yeah. Was that also process of the five S food, five fashion festivals and films, a good way to sell it to consumers, to travelers, to better understand sort of the national personality of Thailand in some ways, but it did, did also help you sell it to the regions in terms of them understanding what the, the national focus was and how tourism could change in the country. There were these different options, they were divisible, you know, you could promote what was locally beneficial and what, what was an advantage in local, local authorities for tourism? Absolutely, Gungari. That, that's a very good point. The local governments, you know, we, we were happy to work with them, but they needed something that they also could understand and easily promote. So for example, take food, okay, every region, or every province would have their signature dish or go to foods, then they were having food festivals around that, that thing, okay, or they had a fashion festival or whatever, around the, the silk that they have, for example. So it, it made everything easier. We as the national marketer, we, we were happy to, to have these products to sell, to promote, and the stakeholders, the local governments, the villages, the, the handicrafts, workshops and so on, they were happy to, to, to, you know, come on board, you know, because we were bringing customers to them and now they could focus on providing best experience. I mean, it's always fascinating. And then if you, if you link the five Fs to this concept of Tynus, you have a whole platform around storytelling to really inspire people, not just to go to a beach, but actually experience the beach in a Thai way with these products and services that you have developed. What would be interesting for me to understand is that did you actually measure to see if more money was being spent, but also more money stayed in the destination. Hence, you know, this whole concept of high yield tourism were the economic benefits resulting from this concept of the five Fs and, and, and Tynus. Yeah, we, we did a lot of surveys. With revenue, it's not like arrivals, as you know, no arrivals can be easily obtained, you know, the numbers with revenue. It took a bit of time, okay, our source of information, whether the question is, are visitors spending more? Are you getting more high yield visitors, you know, the hotels in the regional areas that helped us a lot. They were able to report an increase in, in occupancy and increase in, if they wanted to increase room rates, where there's still, you know, customers that come, you know, we got that, we got that. And of course, not every hotel reported that that that's not a possibility, but certain hotels in certain destinations at a certain time, for example, for hot yai, you know, they always have an influx of Malaysian visitors, but when there's a festival or when there's a long holiday in Malaysia, then the room rates go up. Okay, and, and everyone's happy, you know, the rooms were full and so on. So that's how we get our info. I think what's happening is that it does work on Yens and Cungari. It does work the focus on getting high yield people to secondary destinations to places beyond Bangkok, Phuket and so on, but not the whole year. Which is good, you know, so we can channel people or do promotions to get people to a certain place at a certain time here. Can I reference, I am sure you get asked about this very, very often, Kunchatan, but in terms of film and movies and TVs, this is a very, very hot topic, particularly in Asia right now. I guess one of the most anticipated events of 2025 relates to Thailand, and that's the white lotus. TAT was a partner in that production, if I'm not, if I'm not wrong, how can you use that to tell the stories, not just for Cosmoi, but for, you know, the country as a whole? What can you leverage from that? Well, it's huge. Okay, I was at the very, very beginning of getting white lotus to come. Okay, I don't take credit for their eventual, you know, landing in the country, but I don't expect people to come to go, only Cosmoi. Of course, a number will come, just to follow the film location and the filming and all that, but I guess what's happening is the image overall, you know, of a country, you know, as a place of mystique, you know, with attributes and so on. It's the complete picture. And when you get a show like white lotus, which is a very, how would I say, scenery, shoeing kind of place, you know, and there's a story, there's a compelling story behind that. It creates that aura, you know, so it does help, it does help a lot. And you also have a very famous Thai star as well in the show? Well, I've seen the trailer. I hope she gets her fair share of a role, you know, but, you know, she's world famous and she's been a really good brand ambassador for the country, even though she's not the official tourism brand ambassador, but she's been awesome. Yeah, that's Lisa from Blackpink, right? Yes, yes, to put it mildly, yes. Oh, great. So I think that's interesting, obviously kind of leveraging this whole positioning platform. But then now from the demand side, obviously there's a lot of source markets that you're looking at, you know, I mean, China, obviously being a big one for Thailand, but you have other ones as well, and there's obviously other emerging markets. How have you looked at diversifying your source markets to really making sure that you attract the right travelers that actually bring economic benefits to the country? Well, it's, we are, I use the word again, compelled to do so, you know, for a certain time, we had relied on only a few markets, you know, a few major source markets, okay, even though we had, you know, offices nearly, you know, in all the major markets, but we really, really relied on only a few markets, you know, but then certain events or occurrences happened that impacted that market, okay, so we were compelled to diversify countries and segments. For example, I bring up COVID again, we got travelers from countries that weren't really that significant to us before, like Israel, like Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, you know, those countries were really minimal before, but although they don't reach the millions of people, that's okay because they come consistently and they spend, you know, per head, those are the high-yield travelers that we want more of, okay, and it's not about the spending communes, these customers, they appreciate the country, you know, they appreciate the culture, they appreciate how they are treated here, you know, and that's always important. I'm not saying that the other countries, the other nationalists don't appreciate it, but these, because they, maybe they're new to us and we're new to them, they appreciate it more, okay, so it's always very important to never stop diversifying your targets, but always find people that appreciate you. I think that's interesting, I think if we now go closer to home, you look at new emerging markets further away from Thailand, but if we're looking closer to home, I got maybe like a double question here, one is obviously regional travel in Afghanistan in the Mekong region, and you know, I'm a big fan of the potential of regional travel, but then also I think one thing that we've seen doing COVID is the whole thing around domestic travel and the power that that can have as well, what do you look at building that into your demand strategy? Well, because of domestic travel, you know, I mean, meaning ties traveling in Thailand, you know, we were able to survive COVID, because if you remember, the country closed down, you know, in what, 2021, we, okay, 2019, we had 40 million foreign visitors, okay, 2021, we had 300,000, okay, so, so, I mean, the industry, the tourism industry, basically collapsed, okay, but we were able to keep it going and, you know, bring hope because of ties traveling in Thailand, of course they couldn't go anywhere else, but if you don't have this impetus in encouraging people to travel in the country, they would just stay home, you know, but they did travel, okay, to a certain degree, okay, so, I mean, they're always important. Now, after COVID, my team, or my former team, or the NTAT, still going all out to tell ties that, okay, you have the ability to travel elsewhere, but also travel within Thailand, and now, it's segmentation again, it's not just ties, you know, we can go after the supercar owners of Thailand, okay, high yield, right, we can go after the foodies, you know, food enthusiasts of Chiang Mai, of Phuket, of Isan, okay, we can go after the other segments, there's our, what, stargazing clubs now, so on and so forth, and religious tourism, you know, people will always want this blessing for the year, something like that, so there is segmentation now, and ties have never been more important than they are now to the tourism industry. I just wanted to quickly, on the regional side, how would you look at the importance of the neighboring countries, if it's Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia? Yeah, I'm a big proponent of overland travel, if we can do something like what's happening in Europe, or what has been happening in Europe, meaning you can drive anywhere, you know, across borders, and, you know, just, then you, a lot of things happen, you extend your length of stay, you see more, you are able to reach the secondary destinations and the smaller towns by your own, where you spend, you know, through driving, through rail, through bus, whatever, okay, so overland travel, and it's developing very quickly, right now we are enjoying a consistent overland travel from Malaysia, hopefully as things develop, we will enjoy overland travel from Laos, from Myanmar, from Cambodia, and from Vietnam, okay, we're getting a certain number, we used to get a lot, but now we're just re-establishing this link with Yunnan, so there are people driving in, driving them by, okay, and as the economies of these countries grow, it just contributes tourism, they will want to visit Thailand for, to buy things, to go to a spa, to do some, you know, sightseeing, of course they can travel within their countries, but we offer something different, a different culture, different value for money, so on and so forth, so yeah, it, as they grow, we grow. That's interesting, so coming from where we've come from in the pandemic to where we are right now, tourism is bouncing back pretty strongly in Thailand, had a very good year in 2024, looks like you may be on target in 2025 to at least match or perhaps surpass the numbers from 2019, what are the challenges ahead? Oh, there's, there's a lot, there's still plenty, I think, of course competition is intense, you know, no one is letting up, consumers, they expect high quality, they expect safety, and I'm sorry to say safety is still an issue here, unfortunately, I think Thailand needs to shore up, it's, it's, it's safety measures and, and, and, and be better, and then there's always people, why people travel can carry, it's, it's, it's just want to have fun, so we need to deliver on that experience consistently, okay, it's, it's everything from when you get off the plane until you get back on the plane again, okay, so it needs to be really quite flawless when, when you deliver on something, you know, it's the service, it's the food hygiene, it's the ease of travel, you know, it's, it's everything, so we need to be really on our toes all the time, it's, it's a buyer's market, right, when you have money, you have time to travel, you can choose, you can go anywhere, so why come to Thailand, and when they choose to come, we need to deliver on the experience, so, and that is, that is always a challenge, and we have so many, how would I say, so many actors in, in the country, TAT as a marketer, we can only do so much, then of course, we hand off to people to the, the provinces, and so on, so, no, everything must be perfect, or rather near perfect, or, or, and everyone must be on board with, with this mindset. I mean, I think it's fascinating, the, the Thai tourism story, I think we can say is a success story, of course, they're, they're challenges, but it is a success story, what do you think other destinations can learn from Thailand, other international destinations, maybe they're mature, maybe they're, they're just developing their tourism, when they look at Thailand, it's like, wow, you know, Thailand doesn't have, doesn't have that strong tourism brand, they have a really strong arrival number, what would you say you have heard that some of the things that someone, maybe there's some of the mistakes that, that Thailand has made, that you would say like, okay, be careful with that, or some of the things that they should be doing? Well, we've, we've had our ups and downs, okay, I've, I myself have, have, have been through the bird flu, the tsunami, coups, political disturbances, you know, what have you, everything, okay, but every time we bounce back, sometimes fast, sometimes very slowly, okay, but we eventually bounce back. One day, a few years ago, I had the same conversation with, with the, some of the business people, and we were discussing why we bounce back, you know, it doesn't look like we should be able to bounce back in, in many regards, but we do bounce back every time. And the, the answer was, and it, it was what, it was, we talked to each other all the time, Kunians. I mean, the government talks, communicates with the private sector, and vice versa, all the time through good and through bad times. Therefore, there's an understanding of what is to be done, what is needed, you know, how we work with each other. I think communication is key, you know, a lot of times, I, again, not naming names, I see many governments, they do what they do, but they don't talk to the stakeholders. Okay, this is the plan, you follow them. For many years, we did that too, you know, we did that too. And the, the result wasn't outstanding. You know, so I guess, whatever happens, Kunians and Kungari, there needs to be a constant stream of communication, whether or not that evolves into a campaign, or a promotion, or you know, mega events, I don't know. Okay, but at least you're, you're talking to each other, you have a friendship, or at least a relationship with each other. I mean, meaning B2B, G2G, B2G, or whatever, every segment of the tourism industry must, must know each other. So communication is at the core of building resilience. I have no doubt, you know, I'm very committed to that. Yeah. Good. I think this was a fascinating discussion. I think we could go on for hours talking about the tie tourism story. And I think I know Gary and I, we have a lot more questions. Maybe we need to do another episode in a few weeks down the road, or a few months down the road. But I think for today, I think this was great. And thank you so much, Kunchataan. How many years have you been with, with T18? 37. Okay. I retired last year, but I'm in a way, I'm still connected with TAT as a consultant. Right. You can write a whole book about the tie tourism story and your experience. I think it'll get many people to sleep. I would look forward to reading it personally. Jasen, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for your insights and for joining us on the High Yield Tourism Podcast. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you so much. [Music]