Thailand awarded "Best Tourist Country" for nine consecutive years

BANGKOK, January 25 (TNA) - Thailand, once again for nine consecutive years, has been awarded “The World Best Tourist Country” by "Travel News", a Scandinavian most renowned travel magazine; while Thai Airways International (THAI), the national flag carriers, has also been proclaimed “The Best Intercontinental Airline Operate from Norway” for eight consecutive years. Nalinee Pananont, Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT)'s Stockholm office in Sweden, said Wednesday that the Grand Travel Awards 2012 were publicly announced in Oslo, Norway's capital, on January 19 with a ceremony held concurrently to confer the honourable prizes. According to the TAT director, Thailand welcomes a large number of Norwegian tourists annually, representing a high portion of visitors from the Northern European nation, compared to its total population of only about 4.2 million. The senior TAT official acknowledged that Norway, where each citizen is annually granted a long 15-day vacation on average, is one of Thailand's major tourism markets, generating high tourism-related revenues to the Kingdom, and that the Norwegians are also well-known for being high natural and environmental-conscious travellers and are favourably well-observers of cultural diversity. As Norwegians normally visit Thailand with their families, the younger generations will likely return to Thailand in the future, if impressed during their trips to the Kingdom, and the Scandinavian nation will, therefore, likely become a sustainable tourism market for Thailand.