No policy to allow foreigners to work as tour guides in Thailand: PM Prayut

[webfact]

No policy to allow foreigners to work as tour guides in Thailand: PM

 

BANGKOK, 17 July 2017 (NNT) – The Prime Minister has stressed the government's position to eliminate illegal foreign tour guides, and will work towards the creation of multilingual Thai tour guides to fulfill international tourism demands. 

Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha had said regarding the issue where the Professional Tourist Guide Association of Thailand is preparing to submit a complaint to the government to solve the issue of illegal foreign tour guides and tour operators which only lead tourists to purchase products from their affiliated shops, that the Ministry of Tourism and Sports has been instructed to handle this issue. 

He has said tour guides are a protected profession that only Thais are allowed to perform according to the law, and that the related agencies have been working with tour guides and travel agencies to address this issue. 

The Prime Minister has however accepted that Thailand is in shortage of tour guides in stark contrast to the increasing number of foreign visitors each year. 

As of 30 June 2017, Thailand has 70,655 registered tour guides, 46,880 are categorized as general guides, while 19,154 are area-specific guides. Most tour guides are proficient in English, followed by Chinese and Japanese. 

The Prime Minister has instructed the Ministry of Tourism and Sports to work with the Ministry of Education to plan the promotion of tour guide training in order to create more tour guides, and improve the existing guides' language proficiency, according to demands. 

He has then reassured that the government is working to identify any illegal tours which only bring tourists to purchase items at their affiliated shops, and is working with Chinese authorities to eradicate the zero-dollar tour through strict verification protocols.

 

-- nnt 2017-07-17

[webfact]

PM assures no foreign tour guides are allowed to work here

By Thai PBS

 

 

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha has reiterated that the government has no policy or intention whatsoever to allow foreign tour guides to work in the kingdom as tour guiding as a profession reserved for Thai citizens.

 

But he took note of the problem of shortage of tour guides which, he said, has dogged tourism industry for a long time. He said he had instructed the Education Ministry and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports to work together to produce more qualified tour guides to meet the increasing demand and the expansion of tourism business.

 

The prime minister also recommended Thai tour guides to also try to develop their own skills to meet the demand of tour operators.

 

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/pm-assures-no-foreign-tour-guides-allowed-work/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2017-07-17

[lemonjelly]

Another problem unsolved in the name of nationalism. Well done.


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[rkidlad]

Is this issue so big that the PM needs to be getting personally involved and commenting on it? 

 

Oh, that's right. There's no one formidable to worry about in this story. Just pure nationalistic drivel. 

[yellowboat]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

He said he had instructed the Education Ministry and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports to work together to produce more qualified tour guides to meet the increasing ×demand and the expansion of tourism business.

Can Thais speak Russian, Spanish, Bhasa, or Vietnamese ?  Many countries allow tour guides from other countries, but Thailand is special. 

[allane]

The foreigners aren't "guides', they are "co-ordinators".

[williamgeorgeallen]

another long term solution to thailands need for foreign tour guides. just get rid of them by stopping the zero dollar tourists from coming. nice work mr general. solving problems by cutting off the head to spite the body. now if only you could get more buildings knocked down. when is walking street going?

[brewsterbudgen]

Can Thais speak Russian, Spanish, Bhasa, or Vietnamese ?  Many countries allow tour guides from other countries, but Thailand is special. 

Presumably some Thais can and those will be the ones employed?

[luk AJ]

Anecdote..my wife was visiting some touristic places with 3 visiting friends in Bangkok. She was "arrested" and brought to police station and charged with being a tourist guide. So what is the definition of a tourist guide?


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[Dobredin Ghusputin]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

the creation of multilingual Thai tour guides

[AhFarangJa]

Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha had said regarding the issue where the Professional Tourist Guide Association of Thailand is preparing to submit a complaint to the government to solve the issue of illegal foreign tour guides and tour operators which only lead tourists to purchase products from their affiliated shops, that the Ministry of Tourism and Sports has been instructed to handle this issue. 

 

Everyone knows this is a protected con....er, sorry, I mean business activity, restricted solely to Thai taxi and minibus drivers.....cannot have pesky foreigners muscling in on the action......

[Cadbury]

Micro-manager PM Prayut yet again fiddling around the edges with the little issues while the big ticket items like road safety, education and, government corruption remain in the too hard basket. One is left to conclude he doesn't have the understanding, capabilities or leadership to face up to the difficult jobs at hand. Or it might mean that the military are quite content to let the status quo remain on big issues; particularly corruption and education.

[LannaGuy]

Protectionism always used as an excuse for nationalism "Thais need jobs" excuse same thinking can't have foreign lawyers here and all the other petty restrictions. We 'don't need farangs'.  Take away all the farang science and technology and Thailand would be going around on their kwai drawn buggies.  

[impulse]

25 minutes ago, LannaGuy said:

Protectionism always used as an excuse for nationalism "Thais need jobs" excuse same thinking can't have foreign lawyers here and all the other petty restrictions. We 'don't need farangs'.  Take away all the farang science and technology and Thailand would be going around on their kwai drawn buggies.  

 

We're all envisioning Russian guides for Russian tourists, Chinese guides for Chinese tourists, and Portuguese guides for Portuguese tourists.

 

The rich and powerful are envisioning importing low cost Burmese guides for everyone.

 

[yellowboat]

1 hour ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Presumably some Thais can and those will be the ones employed?

Presumably no.  Thais can speak Japanese and Chinese  pretty well and Bhasa is being taught in some Universities.  Russian is not a popular language in Thailand.  It is doubtful there are many Russian speakers here.  Vietnamese might still be spoken by a few that migrated to Thailand years ago, but it is a very difficult language.    These positions might be filled five years from now, but for now they will remain empty.

[seajae]

unfortunately in most cases foreigners are needed to translate what the thai tour guides say as their understanding of the foreign language in question is simply pathetic. On a recent bus trip with a group of US & aussie people my wife had to act as translator for the guide everytime she said something as no one had a clue what she was talking about as her english was that bad

 

Edited July 17, 2017 by seajae

[YetAnother]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Most tour guides are proficient in English,

doubtful; my tour guide friends can speak english at moderate to low levels; they can speak 'tourist english'; hardly 'proficient'

[RIC23]

They need to allow foreign tour guides until they have enough trained Thais to handle those positions 

[madmitch]

They do absolutely nothing to stop Chinese tour guides as it's not in Thailand's best interests to do so. Despite what Prayut says. No Chinese guides will mean a big drop in Chinese tourists. 

 

The Thai sitting guides generally speak enough Chinese to get by but aren't proficient enough to deal with a busload of Chinese, so they work as a team. 

 

It's the same with Russians.

 

And why is the PM himself involved in such relatively trivial matters?

 

 

[impulse]

19 minutes ago, madmitch said:

And why is the PM himself involved in such relatively trivial matters?

 

It's not trivial for tens (hundreds?) of thousands whose livelihoods depend on how this goes.  And millions whose livelihoods will also be affected if they get it horribly wrong.  

 

Besides, what's 5 minutes of the guy's time to make a public announcement based on hours and hours of work done by underlings who are charged with such matters?

 

Edited July 17, 2017 by impulse

[impulse]

1 hour ago, RIC23 said:

They need to allow foreign tour guides until they have enough trained Thais to handle those positions 

 

What makes you believe that they'll be hiring qualified foreign guides and not importing low cost Burmese just to lower their costs?

 

[thaibeachlovers]

5 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Presumably some Thais can and those will be the ones employed?

It's never been the problem with the tour guides inflicted on me every tour I ever took in LOS. Doesn't matter if they can speak perfect English if they don't know how to be a guide. I've had bad to terrible ones, but none worth a damn.

Having said that, the Irish one I had on a tour there was atrocious, so not just LOS.

[timendres]

Why not just say that a Thai tour guide can have a foreign assistant? Assistants cannot guide alone.

More jobs for everyone, tourist gets proper language and interpretation, Thai guide has a chance to learn a new language - everyone wins.

[brewsterbudgen]

Presumably no.  Thais can speak Japanese and Chinese  pretty well and Bhasa is being taught in some Universities.  Russian is not a popular language in Thailand.  It is doubtful there are many Russian speakers here.  Vietnamese might still be spoken by a few that migrated to Thailand years ago, but it is a very difficult language.    These positions might be filled five years from now, but for now they will remain empty.

I've taught Thai students with degrees in Russian. I couldn't say how fluent they were though.

[yellowboat]

21 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

I've taught Thai students with degrees in Russian. I couldn't say how fluent they were though.

Good luck to them.  Whether or not they actually want to become tour guides rather than Vodka resellers or Thai spice merchants is anyone's guess.  Some countries just want the revenue that tourism bring.  Thailand prefers to want to control things.  How many Thai tour guides operate outside of Thailand ?   

[Maestro]

13 hours ago, webfact said:

Most tour guides are proficient in English, followed by Chinese and Japanese

 

Do the guides have a certificate to attest their linguistic proficiency, eg for English a TOEFL or IELTS certificate?

[balo]

WHat about the Russians ? Do they have enough Thais in this country that speaks fluent Russian ? I doubt it...

 

[Happyman58]

Dont matter if they cant speak English  They can talk and leave it to the tourist to use their imagination on what they are saying Just smile and nod the head

[YetAnother]

14 hours ago, webfact said:

foreign tour guides and tour operators which only lead tourists to purchase products from their affiliated shops,

that per se doesnt sound like the problem; specking the same language in a foreign country is important;

the problem is that the tour guides are illegal; thai protectionism