The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Dubai & Middle East office is hosting a road-show in Iran and Qatar ahead of Arabian Travel Market, with a view to promoting ‘Unique Thai Local Experiences’.

The first leg of the Middle East roadshow will be take place in Tehran in partnership with Mahan Air at Espinas Palace Hotel. The second leg of the roadshow will visit Shiraz in partnership with Qatar Airways in Iran and will be held at Shiraz Grand Hotel. The last leg of the roadshow will head to Doha in partnership with Qatar Airways’ head office and will be held at Grand Hyatt Doha.

The delegation is led by Mr. Tanes Petsuwan, E Deputy Governor for TAT, along with members from Thailand-based travel and tourism industry partners.

Commenting on the roadshow, Mr. Petsuwan said: “Promoting the local experience will not only benefit visitors, but also the local people as well as travel agents. We strongly believe that each local community of Thailand can deliver distinctive, genuine, unique hospitality and Thai culture with new exciting experiences to tourists. Also, this will create new and unique quality products for travel agents to offer to their customers.”

The Thai delegation will be meeting selected travel agents from Tehran, Shiraz and Doha to highlight Thailand’s destinations that are known to provide quality experiences.

From 1 January – 31 December 2016, Thailand welcomed 585,633 tourists from the Middle East including Iran, generating an income of more than 40 million Thai Baht, a 15% increase compared to the same period the previous year. The top five tourism spending countries in the Middle East region are UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.

Mr. Chalermsak Suranant, Director of TAT Dubai also commented, “We are extremely happy to announce that TAT Middle East office received a 13% increase in tourist arrival in 2016 compared to 2015. In 2017, we aim at increasing this number to 34.5 million overseas travellers, + 6% over 2016 and plan to attract more tourists during the green season which will fall from May-August.”