{"id":539,"date":"2009-08-22T11:07:11","date_gmt":"2009-08-22T08:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/?p=539"},"modified":"2022-09-28T13:43:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T12:43:22","slug":"thailand-establishes-health-travel-industry-research-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/thailand-establishes-health-travel-industry-research-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand Establishes Health Travel Industry Research Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thailand<\/a>The Health Travel Industry Research Society of Thailand (HTRIS Thailand), a non-profit, private sector initiative, has been established with three goals focusing on Thailand\u2019s international health travel industry, according to the research society \u2019s Secretary-General Chatree Niramitvijit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Center, which serves as a media watchdog for Thailand\u2019s medical tourism industry, publishes information that helps maintain the Kingdom\u2019s predominance in the billion-dollar Asian industry, a regional market position now being challenged by competing Asian nations including Singapore, Malaysia, India and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

The research society also compiles white papers comprising data from media and market responders, from international industry consultants, as well as from national industry leaders and government advisers.<\/p>\n

\u201cA white paper is an authoritative report or guide that often addresses issues and how to solve them. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, often used in politics and business,\u201d according to Wikipedia. The Thailand HTI Research Society\u2019s white papers are written reports of results and conclusions of its research collaboration activities.<\/p>\n

The research society coordinates its activities with Thailand\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Prime Minister, various government bodies, non-government organizations and representatives of the international medical travel industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Research Society\u2019s role as industry watchdog and its goals of industry improvement and trade promotion meet an urgent need,\u201d says Secretary-General Niramitvijit, a retired professional with a sales career embracing top media companies including the Reader\u2019s Digest, Bangkok Post and Sing Sian Yit Pao.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe society\u2019s purpose is not only to analyze how the world market views the international service industries such as healthcare, travel, security, hospitality, wellness and tourism in Thailand,\u201d says Mr. Nirmitvijit, \u201cbut also to ensure that the increasingly aggressive promotion from competing nations in the region do not overshadow Thailand\u2019s primacy in the region as a favorite medical travel destination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThailand, Singapore, Malaysia, India and the Philippines are major destinations in the Asian medical tourism market,\u201d says the 2009 Medical Tourism Market Report by Koncept Analytics. \u201cThailand is more popular among Western European medical tourists for cosmetic surgery. Singapore and India specialize in complex procedures with India having a cost advantage and Singapore a technology advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thai tourist industry earns some 540 billion baht (about 15.4 million US$) each year, comprising over 6 percent of Thailand’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employing over 7 percent of its work force. More recently however, statistics released by the Tourism Authority of Thailand shows that visitor arrivals went down 19% in Jan-March this year (3.2 million) compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n

Thailand\u2019s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is highlighting medical tourism to revive Thailand\u2019s tourism industry during his personal visits and roadshows around the world. He underscored measures taken by his government including the waiving of all visa fees, the reduction of take-off and landing charges for airplanes, the lowering of entrance fees to national parks and the provision of travel insurance to foreign visitors.<\/p>\n

Last week, Prime Minister Vejjajiva visited Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, the Kingdom\u2019s capital, to investigate a series of incidents which, he said, \u201cis causing immeasurable harm to the tourism industry\u201d such as luggage theft, unlicensed tour guides, dishonest taxi drivers, extortion and pick-pocketing. Soon after, 205 unlicensed taxi drivers and tour guides were arrested and fined for operating illegally at the airport. The companies for passenger luggage check and transport are designing new measures to stop luggage theft.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government is also working on diversifying our tourism industry so that tourists can enjoy cultural excursions while, at the same time, being able to pursue other activities like spas, sports, medical check-ups and eco-tourism,\u201d said Prime Minister Vejjajiva in a speech in Beijing in June this year.<\/p>\n

Thailand, together with India and Singapore, currently dominate Asia\u2019s medical travel market with a combined market share of around 90%, according to researchandmarkets.com. India is predicted to become Thailand\u2019s biggest competitor, with the potential to capture up to 25% of the region\u2019s medical travel market by 2012. South Korea and the Medical City in the UAE are part of this growing market.<\/p>\n

In its Thailand Investment Review February-March 2009, the Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI) announced new government policies that \u201cdirectly and immediately assist the tourism industry\u201d including ad campaigns as well as measures to reduce tourism-related fees and service costs. Medium-term plans include expansion of the tourism and service sectors \u201cby increasing the diversity of service businesses, adding value, enhancing competitiveness, and improving skilled labor in quality and language skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe country has tremendous potential to serve as a center for international conferences, product exhibitions, and medical tourism, and the government is exploring how to maximize that potential,\u201d says the BOI. \u201cThe government also plans to review all tourism-related laws to ensure that they are up to date and complementary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Health Travel Industry Research Society of Thailand (HTRIS Thailand), a non-profit, private sector initiative, has been established with three goals focusing on Thailand\u2019s international health travel industry, according to the research society \u2019s Secretary-General Chatree Niramitvijit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[7997,130,7877,7,7873],"tags":[7981,7879,7893],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-far-east","category-health","category-politics","category-tourism","category-travel","tag-malaysia","tag-philippines","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7976,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/7976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}