The environmentally friendly tourism initiatives in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat are also aimed at boosting the number of visitors from across the Malaysian border and farther afield, he said.

Nalikatibhag was speaking after the signing of a memorandum of understanding that covers the Tourism and Sports Ministry, the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre, the Thai Research Fund, the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat, and Songkhla Rajabhat University.

The signing of the document paves the way for the creation of community-based tourism (CBT) in the three provinces. Under the programme, a tourist management system will be provided along with help for how to devise tourism packages for domestic and foreign visitors as part of efforts to boost people’s incomes in the targeted communities and contribute to peace-building in southern Thailand. “The main idea is to do what is needed to create a more peaceful environment in the south of Thailand and also improve the quality of life of the people,” Nalikatibhag said.

Currently, Yala, Pattani and Narathiwas have a combined 32 communities that are being developed as CBT tourist destinations, with six of them already established as pilot projects that will also serve as prototype communities for a further 26 communities to be incorporated into the broader goals of the plan. Participants in the programme will learn how to develop local attractions as CBT destinations. The DASTA will invite representatives of the 32 communities to participate in a tourism trade exhibition, the Matta Fair 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, in March next year.

“We also are negotiating with 14 local CBT tourism firms to join in with the programme and this will help the communities to create their own tourism package to serve the demands of tourists. 

This is a way that we can boost the number of tourists and also create peace for this region,” Nalikatibhag said.

He said that the 32 communities comprise 8,500 families with a total of 35,000 people. The programme will help them to improve their livelihoods and will serve as an example for other communities to benefit from CBT tourism.

At the end of year 2016, the combined number of tourists visiting Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat was 1,528,042. Up to 58 per cent of them – or 897,835 – were foreigners, with the remainder from Thailand.

Deputy Prime Minister Chatchai Sarikulya said after ceremony for the signing of the MOU that the initiative formed part of efforts to promote tourism businesses and to contribute towards peace in the region, which has suffered from a long-running insurgency.

It also fits in with the government’s strategy to develop the “Southern Economic Triangle” into stable, prosperous and economically sustainable provinces by 2020, he said.

Under the Southern Economic Triangle strategy, the Cabinet in 2016 approved Bt5 billion to be spent on 63 infrastructure projects in the three provinces from 2017 to 2020. Some Bt300 million has been invested in 17 of the projects this year, with spending to continue over the next two years. State agencies are also planning investments in the three provinces.

Among the big projects, the Airports of Thailand Plc plans to invest Bt1.03 billion to develop Yala Airport and Narathiwat International Airport by 2020, and the Marine Department of the Transport Ministry plans to spend Bt116 million to develop Pattani Port into a commercial port serving cargo ships of up to 5,000 tonnes gross weight in 2020.

The strategy is aimed at increasing prosperity in the three southernmost provinces by making them more politically and economically stable. One city in each province will be developed as a model city, setting an example for other cities in the region.

Nalikatibhag said that, under the Southern Economic Triangle strategy, Nongjik district in Pattani has been selected to serve as an agricultural city role model for the development of agricultural industries and bio-diesel. Similarly, Betong district in Yala will become a model natural tourism city. Sungai Kolok district in Narathiwat is to serve as an example of an international trade hub in southern Thailand by developing a distribution centre and a logistics system to link the district to neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/Economy/30351746