Bangkok--4 Nov--Department of Tourism
Proactive Marketing Plan to Be Launched before Year-end to Attract
More Production Companies from 8 Countries
In the first three quarters of 2013, Thailand Film Office, Department of Tourism, has attracted foreign production companies to come and make films in Thailand with accumulated revenue of 1.443 billion baht. By year-end, it is expected that the revenue would hit 2-billion-baht mark as planned. The office is now preparing proactive marketing strategy to attract more production companies from 8 important countries to come.
Thailand Film Office, Department of Tourism, Ministry of Tourism & sports, unveiled its overall operation up to September 2013. As of the first three quarter of the year, the office has attracted foreign production companies to come and make films in Thailand with accumulated revenue of 1.443 billion baht. It is expected to reach 2-billion-baht mark as planned in year-end. From that revenue, companies from Japan were responsible for the highest spending at 115 million baht while Indian companies have spent 113 million baht in Thailand. Miss Ubolwan Sucharitakul, Director of Thailand Film Office, discussed the possibility of reaching that expected amount of revenue at the end of the year that “This year, locations in Thailand seemed to attract more companies to come and make films here compared to previous year. That explains why we expect to see at least 1.9 or 2 billion baht spending in the country and we are confident to say we can succeed in having this year’s revenue at 2 billion baht, an 11% growth from last year’s at 1.781 billion baht.”
Thailand Film Office has, this year, conducted the 2nd “Thailand Inbound Road Show 2013”, following the success of last year’s event, from October 27 to November 3, 2013. The event invited famous filmmakers and directors from 8 countries including USA, Australia, France, South Korea, Japan, Russia, India and China to visit Thailand in order to let them see up close of how beautiful locations in Thailand are and how ready our film industry is in terms of equipments, studios and crews. One important activity done according to Thailand Film Office marketing strategy that was a great help to attract foreign companies was how the office conducted a tour to visit great locations in several provinces including Bangkok, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan, Mae Hong Son and Krabi, just to name a few.
“The 2nd Thailand Inbound Road Show 2013 that has just been done with a huge success. All 10 well-known filmmakers from 8 countries were impressed by beautiful locations we brought them to. Moreover, it was the readiness of the crews and equipments in Thailand as well as our good quality of services and convenient facilitation that showed how great it would be for them to film in Thailand. Filmmakers from Russia and India have actually shown their interest to come.”
“In addition, setting up a booth in international film festivals like The Production Show in UK, Hong Kong International Film Festival in Hong Kong, Cannes Film Festival in France and AFCI Locations Trade show in the US to publicize and invite filmmakers and production companies to make films in Thailand including in our annual public relations, marketing plan, and we also have Thailand International Film Destination Festival annually. Not only that, we also conducted trainings for coordinators who will work with foreign production companies in order to raise the bar in terms of service standard. Until now, we have more than 269 people who passed this training and will help make our country even more attractive for new foreign companies to come,” added Miss Ubonwan.