Thailand to help neighbours with community-based tourism

Accord­ing to the Bangkok Post, “this will be the first time the three coun­tries are work­ing closely with Thai­l­and spe­cific­ally on CBT devel­op­ment, after join­ing forces on cross-bor­der tour­ism, logist­ics and con­nectiv­ity, and envir­on­ment issues”.

DASTA has signed a memor­andum of under­stand­ing with the tour­ism author­it­ies of Luang Pra­bang and Xay­aburi in Laos; expects to sign a sim­il­ar agree­ment with Cam­bod­i­a’s Apsara Nation­al Author­ity; and is talk­ing with the Tour­ism Coun­cil of Bhutan.

The pub­lic organ­isa­tion will provide know­ledge, expert­ise, and busi­ness mod­els to oper­at­ors and tour­ism organ­isa­tions in Laos and Cam­bod­ia fol­lowed by a series of com­munity visits.

A CBT mod­el DASTA may share with its neigh­bours is Ban Rai Kong Khing in Hang Dong dis­trict, Chi­ang Mai province.

Rai Kong Khing vil­lage won a CBT-related award in 2015 for demon­strat­ing excel­lence in social, envir­on­ment­al and eco­nom­ic sus­tain­ab­il­ity in tour­ism based on sus­tain­able con­sump­tion and pro­duc­tion prin­ciples. DASTA helped the vil­lage with train­ing and in set­ting up tour­ism ser­vices such as com­munity tours, organ­ic food, tra­di­tion­al Lanna mas­sages, and herb­al products.

What is DASTA?

Accord­ing to its PATA mem­ber­ship list­ing: “DASTA is a gov­ern­ment agency which is account­able to Prime Min­is­ter, aim­ing to cre­ate, devel­op and pro­long sus­tain­able tour­ism in Thai­l­and. DASTA focuses on devel­op­ing tour­ism in des­ig­nated areas, namely Chang Island and Vicin­ity, Pat­taya City and Vicin­ity, His­tor­ic­al Parks of Suk­hothai, Si Satchanalai and Kamphaeng­ph­et, Loei, Nan Old City, and Uthong Ancient City, in 3 dimen­sions — eco­nomy, soci­ety, and environment.”

In addi­tion to offer­ing its CBT tour­ism devel­op­ment frame­work and assist­ance to neigh­bour­ing coun­tries, the agency has estab­lished an academy that con­ducts research and train­ing and provides data and inform­a­tion about CBT to tour­ism stakeholders.

DASTA also works with UNESCO to train and cer­ti­fy loc­al guides, ensur­ing that they have extens­ive know­ledge of loc­al tour­ism attrac­tions, includ­ing her­it­age sites. The two organ­isa­tions have jointly cer­ti­fied 53 loc­al guides from com­munit­ies near Suk­hothai His­tor­ic­al Park in Thailand.

Sources: Based on a Bangkok Post art­icle plus the Ban Rai Kong Khing Face­book page. At time of post­ing DAST­A’s own web­site was down.

Fea­tured image: Mae Luang and Paw Luang (the lead­ers of Ban Rai Kong Khing) wel­come vis­it­ors to their vil­lage. From the Ban Rai Kong Khing Face­book page.