Changes proposed for tourism and guiding act to speed up penalties
The Tourism Department will propose amendments to the tourism business and tour guide act so that penalties could be swiftly imposed on violators, the department chief said.
Thaweesak Wanitcharoen, director general of the Tourism Department, said on Monday that his department is in the process of studying how to amend the Tourism Business and Tour Guide Act of BE 2551 to increate penalties.
Thaweesak said the amendments would allow the authorities to more quickly punish tour guide and operators of tourism businesses through a three-step process of issuing a warning, suspending licences and revoking licenses.
In the case of severe wrongdoing, the authorities may skip the two precedent steps and directly revoke licenses, Thaweesak said.
He said his department pondered the amendments because tourists affected by the malpractice of tourism business operators were having to wait quite a long time to get their money back.. The planned amendments would require the operators to quickly return money to affected tourists, Thaweesak added.
He said his department is also studying how to set minimum prices for tour packages to prevent tourism operators from participating in extreme price competition that would eventually cause negative effects on tourists.
Thaweesak said the study on the minimum prices for tour packages should be done within this year.
