The Thailand Travel Mart 2013 Plus (TTM+2013) will kick off June 5 with two first-time events, the organizer, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), has announced.
They include the participation of Yunnan Provincial Tourism Administration and the introduction of debates to the Travel Forum.
Both will help expand the quality of participation in Thailand’s largest business to business event, and also raise the level of intellectual discussion to a new high, according to TAT.
The Yunnan Provincial Tourism Administration has a registered a team of 26 delegates to participate in TTM+. This is a very important step forward as the TTM+ is designed to
showcase the exciting tourism products of the entire Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) which includes Vietnam, Yunnan province of China, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.
Yunnan is located in the lower Southwestern part of China and shares a long border with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. It is also close to Thailand, Bangladesh and Bhutan, making it an important gateway to Southeast and South Asia.
Yunnan’s 16 prefectures and municipalities have a total population of 44 million, including 25 minority groups. Its capital is Kunming.
Kunming Changshui International Airport is now the fifth largest airport in China, with connections to 10 cities within Yunnan Province, 60 cities within China and 14 international cities, such as Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Osaka, Seoul, Yangon, Vientiane, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Siem Reap, Mandalay, Dhaka, etc.
The emergence of road and rail links, including the Asian Highway and the Trans Asian
Railway, will also enhance its connections with Hanoi, Bangkok, and Lashio (Myanmar).
“The strong presence of Yunnan province will certainly give a major boost for buyers seeking new destinations in this part of the world,” remarked TAT Governor Suraphon Svetasreni in a statement.
“At the same time, the inclusion of debates is now important in order to broaden industry discourse and provide an opportunity for such an important issues to be discussed in a comprehensive manner,” he added.
Travel debate
As for the concept of debate, it has been incorporated into the forum for Buyers and Sellers on the topics “Creative Travel” and “DIY Tourism”, which two keynote speeches by Greg Richards, Professor of Leisure Studies at the University of Tilburg and Professor of Events at Breda University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands, and Frank Oostdam, chairman of the ANVR, the Dutch Association of Tour Operators and Travel Agents.
Richards will start with the topic “Changing destination perceptions through creative travel,” which will be followed by a debate on the topic: “Bangkok needs repositioning through creative tourism techniques and implementation.”
Meanwhile, Oostdam will deliver a speech with the topic “DIY in tourism: Dynamic Packaging, the pros and the cons,” which precedes a debate on the topic: “dynamic packaging will become the tourist’s preferred option of buying holidays”.