The official opening ceremony of the TAT's third office in North America after New York and Los Angeles was attended by H.E. Mr. Maris Sangiampongsa, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Thailand to Canada, Mr. Kalin Sarasin, Chairman of the TAT Board, Mr. Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT Governor, and Mr. Tanes Petsuwan, TAT Deputy Governor for Marketing Communications.
Around 150 guests including Canadian travel companies, travel media, guests from the business community later attended an evening reception which featured a live music performance by famous Thai saxophonist, Mr. Koh Saxman, a demonstration of fruit and vegetable carving, and making of artificial flowers and carps from palm leaves.
Mr. Tanes Petsuwan, TAT Deputy Governor for Marketing Communications, presented the "4D Open to the New Shades", highlighting five categories of products: Gastronomy, Nature and Beach, Culture, Way of Life, Art and Craft.
In his statement,Mr. Kalin Sarasin (above picture, centre) said, "This is our 28th TAT Overseas office. We chose Toronto, the capital city of Ontario, because it is a vibrant, multi-cultural city and one of the largest metropolitan areas in North America. We believe it will be a perfect location to cover Canada, which has been identified in our current marketing plan as a high potential market with a long average length of stay and strong purchasing power."
In 2016, the average length of stay for the Canadian travellers in Thailand was approximately 18 days, which doubled the overall length of stay with expenditure per day of around 172 Canadian Dollars per person. Moreover, Ontario was the largest source of Canadian travellers to Thailand in 2017, with a market share of 45%.