27 November

THE Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, announced, last week,a partnership to promote tourism between Thailand and Myanmar through “B500 for You” campaign.

The campaign is aimed at encouraging more Myanmar tourists to experience the benefits digital payments when travelling to Thailand until December 2019.

Ms. Lillian Wang, Country Manager for Visa Myanmar said: “Visa is thrilled to be working in partnership with TAT to offer this promotion to Myanmar travellers and leverage this platform to promote Visa’s breath of acceptance, security and the convenience of digital payments.”

According to Visa’s Global Travel Intentions Study, which examines international travel trends and behavior of 17,500 global travellers from 27 countries around the world, cash is the most preferred payment method for global travellers (52 per cent) when making purchases at their destination. Cards, including credit, international debit, charge and prepaid, are the second most preferred method (39 per cent), followed by digital wallets (9 per cent).

Mr. KulpramoteWannalert, Director, ASEAN, South Asia & South Pacific Market Division, Tourism Authority of Thailand said: “We are excited to have Visa as our partner to bring more tourists into the country.

Tourism is one of Thailand’s key growth engines for economic growth, development and cultural understanding. By working with one of the world’s leading brands, this will bring substantial opportunities to both countries.”

Thailand is ranked among one of the most popular international destinations for travellers from Myanmar. Other top destinations included Indonesia, China, Singapore and South Korea.

“We hope the partnership will be the first step towards encouraging higher exchange of tourists between the two neighboring countries. Ultimately, we hope to leverage the partnership to bring more international tourists into Myanmar.

We believe tourism provides a gateway to economic progress by helping to stimulate consumption, promote job creation, and accelerate infrastructure development. Together with increased adoption of reliable and secure digital payments, every traveler who uses a card to pay or buy goods and services is exponentially contributing to this growth,” concluded Lillian. —GNLM