Govt urged to ensure safety of tourists
The Tourism and Sports Ministry is calling on the government to use a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) with local communities nationwide in a move to ensure the safety of tourists and help sustain the tourism industry in the long run.
The initiative, which must be approved by the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission, will make local communities share the responsibility of sustaining the tourism sector. Under the KPI, communities will be scored according to their performance, and based on these ratings, they will be granted government funding to further develop their attractions, said Dr Suwat Sidthilaw, permanent secretary of the Tourism and Sports Ministry.
In Pattaya last week, students from Macau became victims when a jet-ski operator started demanding that they pay Bt160,000 for allegedly damaging one of the jet skis they had rented. The students eventually ended up paying about Bt10,000 after negotiations at the police station.
The ministry has also received many complaints about tourists being talked into buying fake jewellery at exorbitant prices in a scam led by tuk-tuk and taxi drivers, as well as tourist guides. To solve this problem, the ministry is planning to endorse a list of jewellery outlets, mostly in Bangkok.
Meanwhile, a memorandum of understanding was signed yesterday by the Tourism and Sports and Culture ministries on jointly putting cultural products on offer as well as promoting Thailand as a venue for the foreign film industry. The ministry’s main objective is to increase Thailand’s value in the tourism industry and also prepare it for the Asean Economic Community in 2015, which will intensify competition.
