THE Philippines and Thailand have resolved to revive the 23-year-old tourism cooperation agreement during this week’s official visit of President Rodrigo Duterte to Bangkok.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-Chan stood witnesses as Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo and her counterpart, Thai Ministry of Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul signed the Implementing Program of Tourism Cooperation 2017 to 2022 at the Santi Maitri Building of the Government House of Thailand.
The implementing program is rooted in a Memorandum of Agreement on tourism cooperation signed in Manila between the Philippines and Thailand on March 24, 1993.
Thailand joins China, Cambodia and Turkey as Philippines’ partners with whom DoT under Teo forged a tourism cooperation agreement within just nine months of the Duterte administration.
“Philippines’ tourism program may yet gain an added boost with this concrete commitment for tourism cooperation with Thailand as a result of President Duterte’s fruitful official visit in Bangkok this week,” Teo said.
The agreement stipulates, among others, that the two countries shall actively encourage their respective local travel agents to develop a joint promotional program that would market both the Philippines and Thailand destinations in one tour package.
“There is so much we can learn from Thailand in terms of tourism development strategies, [since] it tops south East Asian countries in terms of visitor arrivals,” Teo said.
Manila-based travel and tour operators, who accompanied Teo’s group, said the shared tourism program could strengthen the awareness of international as well as the Thai market about the Philippines destinations.
In 2016, visitor arrivals from Thailand grew by 8.8 percent reaching 47,913.
In addition, Thailand accounts for 10 percent of the total arrivals from Asean.