Thai police introduce smart phone application to promote safe, domestic tourism

BANGKOK, March 27 (TNA) - Thai tourist police have launched a new application on the smart phone system to assist international visitors and to promote Thailand as a world modern and safe tourist destination. Tourist police commander Police Major General Roy Inkhapairote told journalists on Wednesday that the newly-introduced "Tourist Buddy" application is now available for international travelers to download into their smart phones. Police Major General Roy explained that the "Tourist Buddy" application allows users to seek help from Thai tourist police around the clock and to allow the police to locate those seeking their assistance. Police Major General Roy said Thai tourist police will organize the Tourist Buddy Virtual Assistant & i-Exhibition from April 3-16, 2013, during which international tourists will learn about the Songkran, or the traditional Thai New Year Festival and can try the new application and download it; while the Tourist Buddy Virtual Assistant that will greet international visitors and advise them on assistance via hologram projection will also be introduced. According to the tourist police commander, Thailand plans to generate some 2 trillion baht from domestic tourism and the ASEAN Community (AC), set to be formed by 2015, will draw more international tourists to Thailand; so, security measures and conveniences for international travelers appear to be very essential. Meanwhile, Deputy Public Health Minister Dr. Chonlanan Srikaew has praised all fresh markets in southern resort Phuket Province in the Thai South for their "very high" or "high" safety standards with clean environment, after leading a team of authorities concerned, including Deputy Director General of his ministry's Department of Health Dr. Narong Saiwong and Phuket Governor Maitree Intusut, to inspect the local fresh markets earlier this week, during which no contamination was found in randomly-sampled food products. The deputy minister announced that the Department of Health will continue randomly inspect fresh markets across Thailand and if any market maintains their "very high" or "5-star" safety standards for five consecutive years, the Public Health Ministry will lift such fresh markets to be learning centres and models for other fresth markets in the Kingdom and for other neighbouring countries in the region, suggesting that food safety can help create confidence in Thailand among international tourists. (TNA)