A creative railroad tourism development beyond Lanna modernization era
Principal Investigator: Asst. Prof. Dr. Natthanan Thitiyapramote, Lampang Rajabhat University
Thailand’s tourism industry has suffered gravely due to the decline of foreign tourists caused by the pandemic. This project is initiated to encourage domestic travel to support the profoundly impacted industry. The project proposes to design Lanna railroad tourism by employing a creative economy concept. The Lanna rail tour will present the way of life of people in northern Thailand, history of Lanna modernization and creative products via the train travel that passes through old towns of Lampang, Lamphun and Chiang Mai provinces. The Lanna railroad tourism is expected to revive tourism businesses in these three provinces, bringing in revenue to the communities.
Prototype of administration of WellHotel to be a quality health tourism destination
Principal Investigator: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Petsunee Thungjaroenkul, Chiang Mai University
Before the pandemic, Thai wellness tourism was ranked 13th in the world, generating an estimated USD 12 billion revenue and employing 530,000 workers. The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new trends to travelling including sanitation, hygiene, safety, social distancing, digital technology, reliability and social responsibility, setting new standards for the travel industry. Thai wellness industry must prepare to embrace these new trends in order to become “Global Wellness Tourism Destination”. WellHotel is an international quality standard for wellness travelling, and therefore WellHotel accreditation is an essential element to bolster the competitiveness of wellness businesses in Thailand. In this project, a prototype of WellHotel administration has been developed. Aonang Princeville Villa Resort and Spa became the first establishment to use this prototype and successfully integrated local arts and traditional knowledge such as Thai kick boxing and “Tek therapy” into its wellness treatment program.
Storytelling through food and development of food ambassadors
Principal Investigator: Dr. Chirdchai Chantarat, Perfectlink Consulting Group Company Limited
This project aims to employ gastrodiplomacy to create economic value to local resources and culture. “Storytelling through food” is the presentation of local culture, identity, history and way of life through culinary arts and food products and services. Not only can it create an appreciation to local culinary culture and arts, “storytelling through food” is also able to add economic value to Thai food, local resources and products and improve the competitiveness of local businesses. Knowledge obtained from the project will be used to design an online training platform to develop gastro-storytelling specialists to support the creative economy which is part of the Bio-Circular-Green Economy (BCG) national agenda.
