Crackdown vowed on online cheats
Published: 5/05/2011 at 12:00 AM
Authorities have vowed to crack down on illegal tour operators in response to a rapid rise in the number of fraudulent booking operations online.
"We must solve this issue as soon as possible as we have received many complaints from both local and international tourists," said Supol Sripan, director-general of the Department of Tourism.
"Most of the cases these days occur on the internet because tourists prefer to find information and book tour packages themselves. They sometimes don't check the backgrounds of online tour operators."
The department plans to work with the Tourist Police Department (TPD) and the Information and Communications Technology Ministry to crack down on illegal operators, particularly those on the internet.
Illegal operators outnumber legal ones because it is easy to set up an online business, said Lt-Col Thatchapong Sarawanangkul, the TPD's chief inspector.
As of March 31, there were 9,392 legal tour companies registered in Thailand.
"They can run their operations from a small room in any condominium and then post their packages on their websites. Some are staff of legal tour companies. We can suppress them once tourists report the cases to us," he said.
However, he suggested the best way to stop the problem was for tourists to be more careful. They should protect themselves, check information related to tour agents and make transactions only with legal tour operators.
The Department of Tourism set up the Tour Business Protection Fund in 2008 to help compensate tourists cheated by operators. However, the protection only covers cases involving legally registered operators. The fund has 30 million baht, of which 20 million came from the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the balance from fees from agents and guides.
In a related development, the department said its survey of 1,200 international tourists in April found that 84.7% were not worried about local political problems and 70% would visit Thailand again.
The top five positive impressions they reported related to food, culture, spas and massage, the friendliness of Thai people, and tourist attractions. The top four complaints were about unfair product prices and high taxi charges, lack of cleanliness, foreign language skills of Thais, and traffic congestion.
The department will spend 260 million baht to improve signage at tourist attractions nationwide. The project is included in its 2012 fiscal budget totalling 1.71 billion baht, up from 1.56 billion this year.
Credit: Bangkok Post (www.bangkokpost.com)
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