Thailand has targeted to top the 16 million mark in tourist arrivals to the country in 2009,Monday night said Prakit Piriyakiet, Thailand Tourism Authority’s (TAT) Executive Director ASEAN, South Asia and South Pacific Department.

He said that vigorous promotions and the country’s diverse tourist attractions have been able to woo a large slice of tourists visiting the Asian region to Thailand.

Last year the number of tourist arrivals to Thailand was 14,546 million with the majority being Europeans he explained.

Piriyakiet was addressing the local Travel Agents at an "Amazing Thailand" Products presentation in Colombo by TAT.

Thailand has declared the year 2009 "Visit Thailand Year".

Asked how TAT envisages promoting the country he said that Thailand has earned a name as a top tourist destination for three decades

or more but we have to educate holiday makers, particularly those visiting the country for the first time about what we have to offer and what is unique about Thailand .

From October 7-12 a Mega FAM tour was organised for the media from different countries where around 1500 travel writers from both print and electronic media visited Thailand he said.

"It was a huge success and the country received the needed exposure as one of the most sought after tourist destinations in Asia, Piriyakiet said.

"Sri Lanka is an important market for Thailand and TAT will be promoting the country more vigorously in the coming months with many incentives," he assured.

The binding factor for the two countries is the religion as both Sri Lanka and Thailand being predominantly Buddhist countries there is lot of potential promoting religious tourism he pointed out.

Thailand is also popular among the Sri Lankan leisure travelers as well and most of them visit the beach destinations such as Pattaya and Phuket.

But we are vigorously marketing other beach destinations such as Krabi, and Samui where the national carrier Thai Airways commenced direct flights from Bangkok a few months ago he noted.

Though Sri Lanka is not a huge market for Thailand there is a lot of potential, he said

"We will launch vigorous campaign with the help of travel agents and TAT’S Delhi office he said

Last year 44,000 Sri Lankans visited Thailand and we want to increase this number significantly percentage next year," he said.

TAT and Thai Airways are working together to promote the Thailand Tourism Product and the airline’s convenient connections to different parts of the world from Bangkok has made traveling easy for holiday makers Piriyakiet said.

"Kanchanabury is another location we want to promote among the Sri Lankans.

Thai operates four flights a week Bangkok-Colombo-Bangkok and Sri Lankan Airlines is also operating a number of flights from Sri Lanka to Bangkok per week making traveling to Bangkok convenient for the passenger he pointed out.

. It is just one hour and thirty minutes drive from Bangkok,where the infamous "Death Railway" was built by the Japanese during the world war ii. "The actual bridge on the River Kwai is in Kanchanabury,but the award winning film by the same name was shot in a location in Kithulagala in Sri Lanka in 1956 he explained.

"Kanchanabury is a popular attraction among the Australians, Europeans,Japanese etc and the TAT wants to promote it among Sri Lankan travelers as well he said.