The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has targeted to raise the proportion of the country’s tourism market by luxury travellers to 30 percent by next year from 20 percent currently.

After the government laid out a road map for 2016 tourism with a target to bring in more "quality" tourists, the TAT planned a marketing strategy to increase the proportion of luxury tourists, particularly from Europe, Thanet Petchsuwan, TAT Director for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, was quoted by the English language newspaper The Nation.

The agency’s key strategy is to emphasise "luxury Thainess" as a way to differentiate Thailand from its rivals across the world. To that end, it will select several five-to-six-star private companies to attend the International Luxury Travel Market in December in Cannes, France.

The luxury tourism market recorded the highest growth last year at 48 percent, compared with general tourism growth of 24 percent, the paper cited data from the research organisation IPK International's "World Travel Monitor".

Last year, there were 46 million luxury trips across the world, sharing 4.6 percent of the total travel market. The market share was 3.9 percent in 2009. Short-trip spending last year was 750 EUR (about 28,000 THB) per day and long-trip spending 500 EUR per day.-VNA