Bangkok, 20 May, 2020, at 14.00 Hrs. – The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is organising Spanish and Portuguese language training courses online for 150 tourism industry staff, conducted by two of the country’s best universities, the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University and the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Thammasat University.
Mr. Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT Governor, noted that there was still lack a lot of travel industry personnel who could communicate in these languages, and the online courses taking place during May and July 2020, aimed to prepare Thai tourism personnel ready for the post-COVID-19 era.
“During the current downtrend tourism trend during the COVID-19 outbreak, TAT is keen to do its part to support the government’s policy. We are using this downtime to train and prepare industry personnel previously employed in the country’s tourism industry and help them build confidence and recover quickly once travel to Thailand returns,” Mr Yuthasak, said.
According to the TAT’s survey of tourist guides’ training needs for the year 2020, it found that tour guides were interested in training in Spanish, second only to Mandarin, in addition to Portuguese which ranked sixth.
The TAT’s online courses are in respond to the Thai government’s call to action to help tourism personnel expand their potential third language skills.
Spanish and Portuguese are most in demand to work with visitors from Brazil, Spain, and Mexico, which are considered emerging markets for tourists visiting Thailand.
