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THAI has produced a wonderful new brochure, PREPARING FOR CHINA IN 2008, AND STAY A WHILE IN THAILAND, to promote itself as a gateway to China. With the ending of the Olympic Games in Athens and Olympic 2008 scheduled to take place in Beijing, emphasis is shifting to China THAI is the logical choice for China in 2008. The saying is that it’s never too early to start planning, and that is exactly what THAI is doing, planning for the sporting and vacation experience of a lifetime.
THAI will be encouraging those interested in sports to use Thailand as a training ground, especially for the wonderful facilities the Kingdom has at the Thammasat University in which the government hosted the Asian Games in 1998. The University has some of the best sporting facilities in Southeast Asia. This includes seven gyms, for basketball, judo, wrestling, badminton, handball, fencing, table tennis, taekwondo and karatedo. In addition it has the main stadium with seating capacity of 20,000, and Olympic size swimming pool with ten competition lanes and three sporting fields of softball, archery and soft tennis.
Thammasat University is only part of the facilities the Kingdom has to offer. Among the premier sports centres, located in many regions of Thailand, which offer pre-game training programmes for visiting athletes are Huamark Sports Centre in Bangkok, Muang Thong Thani Sports Complex in Bangkok, 700th Anniversary Sports Complex in Chieng Mai and the Songkhla Province Sports Complex near Hat Yai in southern Thailand. All are available for athletes from the world over.
THAI’s goal is to sponsor Bangkok as a training ground before the games and as a rest up place after the games. THAI also has an in-house Royal Orchid Holiday programme in which ROH can promote travel to and from the games. Man more such programmes are in the developing stage and the management of THAI welcomes any suggestions. THAI is clearly taking the position as leader to serving China for the coming games.
The Olympics 2008 will be a unique event for sport champions and the millions of fans, and it will also be a time when the whole of China will be on show, and Thai Airways will be the airline that helps make that possible.
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Beijing and the Great Wall
Looking down at the foot of the Lord Buddha
Chengdu, home of the largest Buddha in the world
Jinghong, THAI's latest destination in China
The famous Bund in Shanghai
THAI's destination in Xiamen on the China Sea coast
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The new brochure, however, not only promotes the main city of Beijing but also Thai’s seven other destinations—Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kunming, Chengdu, Jinghong, Xiamen and, of course, Hong Kong. The brochure capitalizes on the general interest in China. Royal Orchid Holidays is well established in each of these destinations with stopovers and minibreaks that provide a choice of hotels with stays of one to three days or even longer. Some packages include several cities.
China today is wide open, for both business and travel. For the traveller, the tourist looking for new places, China is without doubt one of the great travel destinations of the world. Beijing, for examples, has not only the old treasures of China like the Forbidden Palace and the Whisper Wall but not far away is the Great Wall of China. Shanghai has it Bund and the longest shopping street in the world. Chengdu has the world’s biggest Buddha. In deed, each city, each destination has something to offer, and THAI will take the Olympic teams and their fans there.
Olympic 2008, here comes Thai Airways International.
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
e-mail: booking@inet.co.th
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