The Thai Cabinet was approved an emergency tourism budget designed to promote one of the country's main sectors of the economy in times of an economic downturn, travel site travelmole.com has reported.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will also receive the additional funds to use in the third and fourth quarters of this year, in order to keep the tourism sector growing.
But the new budget will not be as large as previously thought, with the original proposal of Bt500 million made to the cabinet now being cut by more than half.
TAT will instead receive Bt160 million taken from the budget for the Chiang Mai Convention Centre, and a little less than Bt80 million carried over from last year.
Due to the emergency budget cut, TAT has revised its targets for this year, with the number of incoming tourists falling by 0.2 million to 14.6 million and revenue projections also dipping slightly.
The tourism agency will now mainly concentrate the budget on specific territories that provide the majority of tourists to the country, such as the UK, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong Australia and the Middle East.
Some of the budget will also be reserved to major events taking part later in the year, such as the ATP Thailand Tennis Open, the LPG golf tournament and the International Performing Arts and Music Festival.
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