BANGKOK, Feb 13 — Thailand's Kasikorn Research Centre, KResearch, projects that the government's "12 Cities You Can't Say NO To" project, a part of its Discover Thainess 2015 campaign, together with improved taxing measure to stimulate more domestic tourism by Thais would help to generate over 772 billion baht of revenue.
KResearch is expecting the provinces included in the "12 Cities You Can't Say NO To" project–Lampang, Nan, Phetchabun, Loei, Samut Songkram, Ratchaburi, Trat, Chanthaburi, Chumpon, Trang and Nakhon Sri Thammarat — to earn revenue of around Bt3.5 billion, as the project would encourage the growth of visitor numbers and spending in the area, which would in turn improve local tourism and relevant business in each province.
The research further predicted that, with the government's scheme to encourage more domestic tourism by the people by using travel expenses to reduce individual income tax, more Thais would travel within the country, generating a revenue of about Bt772 billion for domestic business, which is higher than 2014's Bt705 billion targeted revenue.
The centre said the highest growth in domestic tourism would be seen in the northern, northeastern or Isarn, and in the southern regions, with tourists in all three regions cumulatively accounting for more than half of the total of visitors for the whole year. (MCOT online news)
