Thai restaurants to be introduced in "Michelin Guide Bangkok"

BANGKOK, April 21 (TNA) - Thai hotels and restaurants will be later this year introduced by the "Michelin Guide", a series of guide books for recommended hotels and restaurants worldwide that are published by the French Michelin Company for more than a century, aimed to attract more upscale international visitors to the Kingdom. Thai Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul presided over a ceremony to launch the new cooperation between "Michelin Guide" and the state-run Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) in Bangkok on Friday. Under the agreed cooperation, recommended Thai hotels and restaurants in Bangkok will be first published in "Michelin Guide Bangkok" in both the Thai and English languages. The recommended Thai hotels and restaurants will also be publicized by the "Michelin Guide Bangkok" in the digital form. TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn told journalists, meanwhile, that he believes the cooperation will help not only attract more upscale international tourist arrivals in Thailand, but also boost their spending per head on accommodations and Thai food, which will earn the Thai Kingdom more tourism-related revenues by about 10 per cent in the near future. Besides, Thai hotels and restaurants will be motivated to further enhance or uphold the excellence of their products and services. According to the TAT governor, his agency will spend a total budget of 144.5 million baht on working together with "Michelin Guide Bangkok" over the next five years. The TAT governor noted that Thailand is the second country in Southeast Asia and the sixth in the Asian region that becomes part of the globally-renowned "Michelin Guide", after Singapore. (TNA)