BANGKOK, 11 November 2020: The Tourism Authority of Thailand launched its ‘Expat Festive Deal 2020’ event this week that will take place at the EmQuartier shopping mall Bangkok from 1000 to 2100, 20 to 22 November.
EmQuartier’s Quartier Gallery and Quartier Avenue host a series of travel fairs to encourage foreign residents to buy discounted holiday deals.
Foreign leisure travellers are still prohibited from visiting Thailand, but the TAT hopes to convince foreign residents to take up the slack and spend their holiday cash on domestic holidays. They are a captive audience as most countries in Asia are discouraging leisure travel.
Around 80 different travel and tourism operators, airlines and also Alipay are signed up to offer discounted travel options for the remainder of the year.
Foreigners in Thailand have hear a lot of hype about “discounts” and “special offers” from TAT over the last months. And it seems to have amounted to nothing. Several reports of hotels upping their “base prices” before “discounting” them, airlines accepting payment, cancelling flights, then refusing to refund.
Why would anyone expect this latest hype to be any different?