This still from a promo for “Thailand Extreme Makeover,” suggests winners can have a large letter “T” carved into their face courtesy of the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
“Give me your eyelids, your pores,
Your thin-lipped masses yearning to be pretty,
The dark-skinned refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the grotesque, age-worn to me,
I lift my scalpel for our medical tour!”
– The New & Improved Colossus
With millions of arrivals lost to Thailand’s ongoing conflict, tourism authorities are pulling out the stops to attract more visitors – even the ugly ones.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand has launched “Thailand Extreme Makeover,” a contest which will pay for plastic surgery for three women.
“Women from around the world are invited to take part in Thailand Extreme Makeover,” explains the site. “The three entrants [ed: “winners?”] will then be selected to receive free facial plastic surgery in Thailand. Enter to win the ultimate makeover trip that will change your life forever.”
It then invites applicants to fill out answer a long series of personal medical questions and upload a series of photos.
Surprisingly the campaign does not seem to be affiliated with satire site NotTheNation.com, and the word “amazing” only appears several times.
BANGKOK, 28 February 2014 (NNT) – The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has introduced the “Thailand Extreme Makeover” campaign, aiming to attract more medical tourists from around the globe via the internet.
TAT Governor Thawatchai Aranyik said as part of the government’s policy to push Thailand to become a hub for medical tourism in Asia, the TAT was targeting to penetrate the beauty market this year, starting with the launch of a new campaign called “Thailand Extreme Makeover”. The campaign will accept online applications from foreigners and three of them will win a trip to Thailand to receive beauty services.
The winners will also get to travel around the country, during which video clips of all activities will be uploaded to social media in accordance with the theme “Happiness You Can Share”. The internet is one of the tools being used to serve the TAT’s goal of drawing more visitors to Thailand and generating up to 2 trillion baht in 2014.
According to reports, the number of foreign visitors in the medical tourism category currently exceeds 1 million persons a year, valued at over 30 billion baht. The Middle Eastern market is the largest, taking up 32%, followed by the Asian and European markets at 24% and 14% respectively. 67% of the visitors choose to come to Thailand for hospitality and quality services while 45% come for its high medical standard.
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