Welcome to the second edition of TICA’s newsletter. To recap on our recent performance, the first quarter has got off to a reasonably good start with not only more MICE visitors heading to Thailand and more buyers visiting, but we have also had more queries for events which are now in the works.

I would like to extend my heartiest congratulations to Malaysia as well, for setting a new benchmark for medical congress in the region by successfully winning the bid to host the World Cancer Congress 2018 in Kuala Lumpur. This achievement is a good reflection on the strength of ASEAN countries, and this solidarity can help in strengthening the region’s MICE business.

ASEAN is growing steadily stronger with member countries that currently make up the seventh largest economy in the world. And by 2015, this block is anticipated to become the fourth largest. This will undoubtedly spur further growth as the region is already outperforming the rest of the world by 2 percent annually.

By popular demand, we will once again highlight Khao Lak as Thailand’s Showcase Destination. This pristine beach destination has seen a substantial growth, and new resorts and developments are steadily opening its doors to more tourists as well as adding on to Thailand’s MICE inventory in South Thailand.

According to a recent report released by the Tourism Council of Thailand, as many as 33.83 million foreign tourists could be visiting Thailand in 2016. This is up by approximately 13.22 percent on the 29.8 million in 2015. As everyone in the hospitality sector is aware, Thailand’s record tourism drive is being well-fueled by the growing inbound Chinese visitors which have in turn prompted leisure establishments to add more workers to cope with this exponential demand.

As evidenced above, these are all promising signs, and I sincerely hope that they will eventually lead to Thailand becoming a more popular MICE destination now and further develop in the years to come.