On 14 February 2023, Ms. Acharapan Yavaprapas, Consul-General of Thailand in Kolkata welcomed the participants to Phuket Roadshow in Kolkata 2023 under the theme ‘Discovery Endless Phuket’ co-organised by Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), New Delhi Office and Phuket Tourist Association at The Lalit Grand Eastern, Kolkata. The event was attended by around 40 tourism operators in Phuket and more than 70 local travel agents and comprised of tourism product presentation and business matching sessions.

Consul-General applauded the lifting of requirement of negative RT-PCR test result for travelers from Thailand to India by the Indian Government, effective from 13 February 2023, which, in turn, enabled the Royal Thai Government to remove the requirement of health insurance covering COVID-19 treatment for travelers from India to Thailand on the same day. This mutual easing of restriction and normalisation of travel measures will surely help facilitate Indian tourists to Thailand. Moreover, she invited Indian tour agencies to bring more tourists to Phuket since it was awarded ‘The Best Island in Southeast Asia’ by the magazine Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, and ‘The Best Wedding Destination’ by the magazine Travel+Leisure India in 2022, which demonstrated Phuket’s immense popularity among Indian tourists especially wedding groups. She was confident that the nomination of Phuket to host the Specialised Expo 2023 will spur further development of tourism-related infrastructure in Phuket to maintain its world-class quality.     

In addition, Mrs. Siriges-A-Nong Trirattanasongpol, Director of TAT New Delhi Office also expressed confidence that TAT would be able to achieve the new target of bringing 1.6 million Indian tourists to Thailand in 2023, increasing from original target of 1.4 million tourists due to the lifting of RT-PCR test result requirement. At the end of the event, Consul-General and TAT New Delhi Office Director also drew over 17 lucky draws with prizes containing Bangkok-Phuket air tickets, accommodation vouchers and admission tickets to tourism establishments sponsored by Air Asia and tourism operators in Phuket. Indian tourists from West Bengal particularly Kolkata constitutes around 10% of the total Indian tourists traveling to Thailand or around 200,000 persons in 2019.