Adventure tourism in Chiang Mai - authorities to get tough after 10 accidents this year

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Adventure tourism in Chiang Mai - authorities to get tough after 10 accidents this year

 

Image: Chiang Mai News

 

CHIANG MAI: -- Adventure tourism in the Chiang Mai area is under the spotlight after ten accidents have occurred this year alone.

 

Now the authorities are acting to ensure that businesses are following the law as ways are being sought to reign in the activities of a tourist site called Grand Canyon that has managed to skirt the law, reported Chiang Mai News.

 

Targeted in the crackdown are ATV parks, businesses catering to tourists going down rapids or using rafts, rock climbing, elephant parks, extreme sports venues as well as zipline activities in forest canopies.

 

A big meeting was held in the Chiang Mai town hall chaired by deputy governor Krit Thanawarit on Tuesday where local councils across the province were summoned along with police and other relevant agencies to discuss what to do over the next few weeks.

 

Word has come from the Sports and Tourism Ministry that they are virtually powerless to do much about the operation of the activities at Grand Canyon where a Thai man died recently jumping in the pools.

 

The Chiang Mai authorities are looking into ways to reign in and regulate the operation there.

 

So far this year there have been ten serious incidents involving Taiwanese, Chinese, German, British and Thai tourists. These have been accidents on ziplines, at elephant camps, an ATV (quad bikes) park as well as four incidents at Grand Canyon.

 

The deputy governor said that prior to this the authorities mainly concentrated on regulating zipline activities but that this now needed to be expanded to ensure the safety of tourists in more areas.

 

One of the key areas under discussion apart from ensuring safety is to make sure that insurance is in place for all tourists so that if something does go wrong they have recourse.

 

Source: Chiang Mai News

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2016-09-22

[NongKhaiKid]

Authorities to ' get tough ', oh dear we know what that means, just look how often they've been tough in the past on all sorts of issues.

[soalbundy]

oooooohhh a big meeting was held, hold your breath.

[Johpa]

8 hours ago, NongKhaiKid said:

Authorities to ' get tough ', oh dear we know what that means, just look how often they've been tough in the past on all sorts of issues.

 

Actually, after the zipline accidents the previous year the authorities did bring significant pressure to bear upon the zipline operators and required new training, continuous training, and new safety standards.  Things go wrong when you have amateurs entering the "adventure tourism" business, like the headman at the "Grand Canyon" who see a business opportunity and start running resorts for profit but who have zero experience and no clue what they are doing.

[Sandy Freckle]

Way too many selfie taking hipsters and millennials sporting man buns, tribal tats and dreadies anyway 

[terminatorchiangmai]

Having a tourist company and buy only for 100 persons insurance is enough proof for the TAT, so they can say  that they enforcing safe tourism.

Even if you handle more then 4000 tourist per year and buy only insurance for 100 persons , nobody checks only TAT when renew license and they already accept if you have a contract with as little as  10 persons on it!!