 PETITE, businesslike Numfhon Boonyawat is ensconced in the modest Sydney headquarters of the Tourism Authority of Thailand on the 20th floor of the Royal Exchange Building.
She is the latest in a long line of hand-picked TAT executives assigned here to ensure every effort is made to maintain Australia's status as one of the Kingdom's most devoted (and profitable) sources of tourism.
"This is one of our biggest visitor markets and yet there is still much untapped potential," she told me. "Maintaining the mainstream leisure market is important but I intend to pay more attention to niche or high-end markets."
Her career history with TAT equips her for the new task as director for Australia and New Zealand. And as her boss, Bangkok-based TAT Governor Suraphon Svetsareni reminded me during his recent visit to Sydney: "Several past TAT directors from the Sydney office have gone on to become governors."
Khun Suraphon himself was a deputy director here in the late 80's and had a distinguished marketing career with TAT head office before his recent promotion to the topmost job.
Back to Suraphon and his vision for the future of Thai tourism later. Let's return, now to the new director.
The 20th floor of the Royal Exchange Building is a far cry from Numfhon's previous foreign assignment.
In August 2001 she had been appointed assistant director of TAT's prestigious New York office.
And a shade after 8.30am on "just another morning" of September 11 she headed across the lobby of the World Trade Centre's south tower to catch an elevator to her 37th floor office.
What happened next is history. Numfhon never made it into the lift.
Today people refer to her as "one of the lucky ones" - if second degree burns over 30 per cent of your body, long hospitalization and convalescence is, in any measure, "lucky".
Medical science, huge scarring (blissfully, mostly out of sight), belief in the law of transience and her Buddhist-inspired ability to rationalise negative events, have equipped Numfhon for just about any challenge.
In an interview with the Bangkok Post a year after the Twin Tower terror, Numfhon acknowledged: "This tragedy brought sorrow to a great number of people, but if we don't handle it carefully it will bring about a chain reaction, a cycle of hatred and revenge, followed by more acts of violence."
The new job on hand and related fringe activities, like breathing new life into this month's version of the annual loy krathong festival in Parramatta, are her new focus.
Involvement in loy krathong by Numfhon and her staff, enthusiasm for the event right up to governor Suraphon's office, continued hard work by the Thai-Australian Association and vital backing of the event by Parramatta City Council should ensure its future.
All things considered, Thailand tourism should have had a shocking 2110. But instead, visitor numbers were steady for the most part, even up in some sectors despite the "Bangkok's Burning" headlines.
And, according to Tourism Governor Suraphon, Australians were "typically" to the fore when it came to ignoring the strife and cashing in on the inevitable bargain-holiday spin-offs.
Thailand is now eagerly eyeing the stopover market, refining intineraries which will enable short-term visitors to get the "real life experience" of the Kingdom without having to spend most of your precious time commuting to places and activities of interest.
For Australians these will include the beautiful Commonwealth War Cemetery at Kanchanaburi, Hellfire Pass and golf-galore in addition to the compelling sightseeing and shopping in and within coo-ee of Bangkok.
Many international travellers, jaded by the more traditional stopovers like Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, have expressed interest in the move.
Some Indian friends, travelling back "home" as a large family group to celebrate Deepavali other family members, took my tip to try Bangkok
for a change, and have just reported a "fantastic" four days of activities when they broke their journey in Thailand.
Increased stopover appeal of the capital and its surrounds can also only be good for Thai Airways' share of healthy traffic figures between
Australia, Europe and the UK.
Stand By For Chateau de Thai
THAILAND's latest venture into the wine industry seems more determined than a previous foray about a decade ago which had a mixed reception.
There was, and is a growing local market within Thailand manacled mainly by the high cost of imported varieties and scarcity of the previous local product.
Now, according to good mate DAVID OVENS, who makes no secret of his fondness for the odd white, red or anything in between, the new Thai wine entrepreneurs are eyeing the Aussie market.
Ovens believes they are on the right track, this time, following a wine tasting last week at Sailors Thai restaurant in Sydney’s The Rocks.
The evening introduced a comprehensive range of wines from Thailand’s Asoke Valley region near the heritage-listed Khao Yhi National Park.
Makers, at the Granmonte vineyard planted in 1990 by the Lohitnavy family, are headed by patriarch Visooth, who developed a taste for wine as a student in Germany in the 1960’s "because I didn’t like the taste of beer".
The wines have been developed by his daughter, Nikki, who honed her winemaking skills at highly respected Australian wineries like Brown Brothers in Milawa and Wolf Blass in the Barossa Valley.
That influence reflects in the wines they presented in Sydney, all of which could sit comfortably on Aussie restaurant winelists.
Ovens singles out the 2010 Zrose syrah "which more than held its own with a quite spicy dish of smoked pork sausage, salmon roe, oysters and eschalots";
A 2010 spring chenin blanc which went down well with an entree of wafer filled with salted chicken, lychees and Thai basil; and a 2009 Orient syrah which enhanced the red curry of duck.
"That the wines stood up for themselves amid such tangy, flavoursome food suggests they could be ideal accompanying a whole range of rich Asian dishes," he said later.
Their introductory presence in the Australian market, via Quality Estates Distributors, of Blackburn, Victoria, will range from their Spring chenin blanc for about $8 through to around $30 for their 2009 Asoke cab sav.
Year Of The Rabbit
(But This Is No Football Prediction)
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