Philippines strengthens tourism ties with Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand — Philippines Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco met with her counterpart Thailand Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MOTS) Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn on the sidelines of the 11th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Tourism Ministerial Meeting (TMM) to strengthen bilateral tourism initiatives between the two countries.

“We very much welcome the priority espoused by the Minister as far as the importance that’s given by the Prime Minister to regional cooperation, especially in terms of expanding the experience of tourists that come to Asia, so that they will not only come to Thailand but go to the Philippines as well. This priority is also shared by the President of the Republic of the Philippines, who has identified tourism as one of the major priority programs under his administration. And for this reason, we are extending our hand of collaboration to you and to your government, optimistic that by our working together, we would be able to forge a stronger region together and recover from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Secretary Frasco remarked during the meeting.

Implementing Program of Tourism Cooperation Agreement

Secretary Frasco requested, and Minister Ratchakitprakarn accepted the invitation to renew and update the Implementing Program of Cooperation between The Philippines and Thailand on collaborations in the areas of travel facilitation, research and development, education, and training, tourism initiatives, human capital development, and employment generation.

To recall, The Philippines and Thailand inked an Implementing Program of a Tourism Cooperation Agreement for 2017 to 2022 on 21 March 2017.

“With regards to the implementation program, we are delighted already to extend as I have mentioned, we have no objections; we see it as a very, very good idea between our two countries. There are a few agendas that I would like to discuss with regards to the exchange of tourists. I understand that as we stand, we have more tourists from the PHL than Thais going to the Philippines and I want to change this and for our Departments to engage in public relations with the Philippines so we can increase the number of Thai tourists going to the Philippines,” responded the Thailand Tourism Minister.

“I accept with gratitude the minister’s sentiments saying that we would like more people from Thailand to visit the Philippines to equalize the number of people…