Court for tourist protection proposed

The aim is to keep the country safe as a holiday destination and to boost travel satisfaction in order to achieve the government’s target of Bt2 trillion in tourism revenue by 2015, said Somsak, who early this month replaced the late Chumpol Silpa-archa.

Setting up such a court is a complex and time-consuming process, requiring legal backup by the legislature in the form of a new law or an amendment to existing laws.

Initially, the Justice Ministry will be asked to extend the office hours of normal courts to evenings and weekends to hear tourism cases. In the medium term, a special department of the court would be formed to handle tourism cases. The National Police will also be asked to help.

This will help speed up the legal process. Now, foreign tourists have to lodge complaints with normal courts, but many of them are staying in this country short-term and have no time to seek justice under the existing procedures.

Thailand needs to deal with several problems undermining foreign tourist sentiment such as scams and cheating but especially threats to safety. However the ministry said the crime rate is still lower here than many places elsewhere. The standard abroad is not more than two victim of crime out of every 100,000 tourists. Now, the Kingdom’s rate is 0.02 per cent.

Somsak met for the first time with the management team of the Tourism Authority of Thailand and expressed pleasure at TAT’s role in promoting tourism to boost arrivals. He listened to their opinions and issues and delivered a policy message. However, he expressed concern over safety as a risk to tourists’ confidence.

This year, Thailand will welcome 24.5 million foreign tourists as projected. The baht’s appreciation was not a worrisome factor. However, they they will spend more carefully because they receive less money when exchanging their local currencies, he added.