|
Chiang
Mai
Tourism – Its problems and solutions
A talk and
presentation by Jack Kelly
Present:
Michael Bauwens, Klaus Berkmüller,
Klaus Berenhavsen, Mark Bleadon, John Cadet, Jim Campion, Penkhae Camsa, Guy
Cardinal, Etienne Daniels, Harry & Margaret Deelman,
David & Rungarun Freidberg,
Louis Gabaude, Martine Gauthier, Oliver Hargreave, Reinhard Hohler, Autsadaporn Kamthai,
Peter Kouwenberg, Annette Kunigagon, Peter
Koret, Wisoot Legsomboon,
Mike Long, Maggie McKerron, Stan Moore,
Traci Morachnick, Verne Mundell, Thomas Ohlson, Marquis Op de Laak, Pichayalak Pichayakul, Adrian Pieper, Phubordin
Phitipongkul, Peter Schupp, Burt & Barbara Tyrell, Ricky Ward,
Michael Youngfellow.
An audience of
37.
Summary of
Jack’s talk compiled by your convenor, Brian Hubbard.
Using
Thomas’s brand spanking new LCD projector and other associated
bits of technological paraphernalia to illustrate his talk, Jack
started by outlining the background and the current situation of the
tourism market of Chiang Mai. He followed this by giving an analysis he
has undertaken, and a subsequent strategic plan that he and a cluster
of like-minded, tourism-oriented business folk have developed to
address, as they see it, some of the problems related to making a
decent living out of tourism in Chiang Mai.
Some of the
items covered in Jack’s analysis included:
Average Daily
Expenditures, Tourists Segmented by Nationality, The Package Tourism
Segment, The MICE Tourism Segment, Market Trends, Diagnostic Tools,
SWOT Summary, Porter’s ‘Dynamic Diamond’ Analysis,
and Benchmarking.
Having
elaborated on some of the finer points of his analysis, Jack then went
on to the strategic plan, entitled – “The Strategic
Objectives Designed to Improve the Deteriorating Tourism
Product.” The main points of the plan were:
1.
To increase the average
daily expenditure and extend duration of stay.
2.
To target new and
emerging market segments – MICE, Golf and Spa, Eco-Tourism etc.
3.
To provide for off-season
tourism opportunities and smooth the natural cyclicality of the
industry.
4.
To improve the quality of
customer services so they are in line with world-class standards.
5.
To improve the
public-private sector dialogues and cohesiveness and modernize industry
organization and key institutions.
During his
analysis, Jack also divulged data on the number of tourists who, after
having been here once, returned to Chiang Mai. The figures showed that
this number, in all demographic groups and for all nationalities, was
extremely small. At this point a chorus of voices from the audience
regaled the speaker with statements akin to “Well what do you
expect. Have you seen the deplorable state of this city?” After
which one member of the audience, making a stalwart effort to contain
his frustration, questioned the speaker as to when he was actually
going to discourse on the real problems of tourism in Chiang Mai
– pollution, traffic congestion, etc., etc. Jack responded that
he and the other members of the cluster were well aware of the de facto
problems, but that the power to remedy them lay in the hands of those
in the Local Authority, few of whom seemed to be showing any active
interest in the subject. By way of explanation for the focus of his
talk, Jack went on to explain that he was a competitiveness consultant
with several years experience in management consulting –
specifically strategic planning, which he has done for many different
industries, and that since August 2003 he has been working with a
growing group of tourism industry stakeholders to assist them in making
some positive changes in what they perceive to be a deteriorating
tourism industry.
After a
challenging, and informative question and answer session, the meeting
adjourned to the Alliance Cafeteria, where Jack was engaged in further
informal discussion with members of the audience who held forth on some
of their own theories as to why tourism in Chiang Mai was in a state of
decline.
|
