Thailand promotes street food to attract tourists

BANGKOK, July 19 (TNA) – The Ministry of Tourism and Sports teams up with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to promote street food to attract tourists. As Khao San Road, backpacker haven in Bangkok’s historic part, is one of the target areas, Pongpanu Svetarundra, Permanent Secretary of the Tourism and Sports Ministry led his team to visit street vendors there yesterday to ensure that they adopted sanitary practices to build confidence among tourists on food safety. He said there are about 170 restaurants and food stalls on Khao San Road. Sixty per cent are food carts and stalls, selling Thai food, snacks, desserts and beverages while the rest 40 per cent are restaurants, offering Thai, Japanese and western food. It is expected the food businesses on Khao San Road will earn about 750 million baht in 2017 or about 62 million baht monthly. Thailand’s street food is renowned and well-recognized by foreign tourists from China, Russia, England, Malaysia and the US. The promotion of the food tourism will help support the Thai economy., he added. (TNA)