Resident Coordinator's Message to the Webinar "BCG Economy Model in the Tourism and Creative Economy Sector"

Distinguished experts, colleagues and friends,

I am pleased to address you at this important seminar, the 4th in the series on the forward-looking BCG agenda.

Today’s topic is highly relevant as the pandemic has impacted the tourism industry worldwide, including in Thailand. However, the current global crises provide us with an opportunity to rethink tourism for the future aligned to long-term sustainability.

A simultaneous policy focus on Thailand’s world-famous creative sectors such as arts and crafts, visual arts and fashion can point the way forward for inclusive human capital development and sustainable economic growth.

Mass tourism is a major contributor to GDP and has brought great economic benefits, but it has also caused considerable harm.

Unsustainable economic activities, including tourism, have damaged ecosystems both on land and underwater.

They have also failed to distribute benefits in an equitable manner to local communities, which is why a paradigm shift is necessary.

Done responsibly, tourism can go hand in hand with the preservation of natural resources and biodiversity. Various creative green solutions can be tailor-made to specific locations and conditions to develop and maintain tourism facilities.

To that end, the UN agencies are working to pilot initiatives across Thailand, including biodiversity and community-based tourism and crowdsourcing for conservation.

These pilots set a model to engage and empower local people to not only benefit from tourism but also play a crucial role in biodiversity conservation efforts.

Let me highlight some of these pilots.

Earlier this year, in an initiative supported by Expedia, more than 500 hotels around Thailand signed on to UNESCO’s Sustainable Travel Pledge, promising to eliminate single-use plastic products and promote local culture at popular tourist destinations.

UNESCO is leveraging this commitment to harness traditional wisdom to scale up creative industries, including locally made natural products and handicrafts as alternatives to plastic items.

Through partnerships with producers many participating large and medium sized hotels already use such locally produced items, which helps eliminate single-use plastics and generate livelihoods in local communities.

Concurrently, UNDP has been working on several pilots to promote biodiversity-based tourism to leverage environmental conservation for sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

In one wildlife-based, community-centred initiative, visitors to an area of the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, which is home to critically endangered species such as tigers, can view animals in the wild from a distance while being driven in a vehicle during a guided tour.

This form of ecotourism, which draws on similar models in Africa, can become an important source of income for local communities, resulting in them valuing and protecting wildlife more.

In Prachuap Khiri Khan province, UNDP in partnership with MONRE, seek to localize decision-making to ensure local people benefit from tourism in an environmentally and socially responsible manner while addressing challenges posed by pollution, climate change, habitat loss and over-tourism.

The UN, in collaboration with the Department of National Parks, is also aiding ethnic minority communities inside protected forests in Chiang Rai in growing coffee organically.

This revenue-generation project shows that eco-friendly agricultural practices can coexist with conservation.

In addition, UNDP has been working on developing new financing models to support conservation efforts from revenue regenerated by tourism.

These range from biodiversity conservation around Koh Tao in Surat Thani province to sustainable mangrove management in Petchaburi province.

In a project launched in April this year and supported by Khrungthai Bank every tourist is charged 20 baht upon arrival at Koh Tao.

It is estimated that this will result in revenues of between $180,000 and $360,000 a year towards biodiversity restoration and conservation around this island, whose environs are famous for their rich marine life.

Already this year more than $90,000 have been raised in just a few months.

Beyond tourism, Thailand’s rich cultural and natural resources are also a well-spring of creativity and a driver for greener, higher value-added growth.

In this vein, UNESCO is supporting Thailand’s efforts to join the Creative City Network to mainstream creative achievements in various domains and strengthen the policy ecosystem for cultural and creative industries in a boost to human capital development in Thailand.

Phuket and Phetchaburi (2020) were named creative cities of gastronomy in 2015 with Chiang Mai and Sukhothai (2019) recognized as a creative cities of crafts and folk arts in 2017.

In 2019 Bangkok was named a creative city of design and Pattaya is currently being evaluated as a creative city of film.

As these examples illustrate, creative solutions can have transformative effects on biodiversity conservation, community empowerment and economic inclusion all at once.

They are in line with BCG principles as well as Thailand’s 13th National Economic and Social Development Plan.

I am looking forward to learning about similar initiatives from all the distinguished experts during their presentations and panel discussions.

Thank you.