He wants to allow foreign tour guides to work in the country as a contingent measure to solve a shortfall of local tour guides. "Travel agencies continue to say there aren't enough Thai tour guides, or that Thai tour guides are lacking in quality as an excuse to bring in foreign tour guides but it is untrue," Mr Jarupol said. Allowing foreign tourist guides to compete in the industry would cause huge unemployment among Thai tour guides, he said. Mr Jarupol argued local tour guides are sufficient to serve foreign tourist but the problem is tour guides have to pay large sums to travel agencies if they want to offer services for foreign tourists. Chonticha Sae-tong, a tour guide specialising in Mandarin Chinese, said Thai tour guides are capable of handling foreign tourists.

Source: Bangkok Post July 09, 2017 22:07 UTC