A BREAK-THROUGH meeting is set for Monday between Phuket's Governor and the tourists' frontline guardian force: the honorary consuls of 16 countries.

The innovative get-together, set to be repeated four times a year, is seen as an ideal way to talk about and tackle problems relating to Phuket tourism.

Never before has there been an opportunity for the people who know most about Phuket's problems to speak so freely with the man in charge.

Countries represented at the meeting bring the vast majority of international tourists to Phuket.

Governor Wichai Praisa-ngob revealed that Monday's meeting will go ahead when he met today with Germany's former Minister of Economics and Technologies, Michael Glos.

He also announced that from now on, the Foreign Ministry offices that opened at Phuket City's Provincial Hall in October will also become a base for the use of the island's consular community.

Most beneficial of all, though, will be the break-through concept of regular meetings four times a year between the Governor and the honorary consuls.

The idea for the regular meetings sprang from a visit by German Ambassador Dr Hanns H. Schumacher to the Governor in November.

Germany's Honorary Consul, Dirk Naumann, who wrote a formal letter to the Governor on behalf of all honorary consuls, said today: ''These meetings will be an opportunity for us to express our concerns, and importantly, to listen to the concerns of the Governor.

''We are also hoping to hear his views on the future development of the island.''

To avoid the meetings being swamped with issues by all 16 honorary consuls, most of the expat representatives are hoping for items to be prioritised in a formal agenda.

With four gatherings each year, all key issues should be on the table within 12 months.

The meetings also represent an opportunity for the views of the expat community to be accurately reported for the first time by the broader Thai media, something that seldom happens at present.

Most issues of concern to expats are freely discussed in English in online news and chat sites, but generally the Thai press seldom reports any negative feedback.

Editors at some of the country's national newspapers have even told expat contributors that they will only cover positive aspects of tourism - a flawed outlook that inevitably leads to bad practices becoming entrenched, and problems going unsolved.

The end result: deceived, unhappy tourists.

British Honorary consul Martin Carpenter said today: ''The news is extremely encouraging and we very much look forward to our first discussions.''

Another honorary consul said: ''This meeting is a great chance for a free and frank exchange of views about all kinds of topics. It will be the first time for the international community to speak as one.''

Represented at Monday's precedent-setting gathering, with numbers of citizens passing through Suvarnabhumi airport in 2008 in brackets, will be:

Germany (449,942), Australia (471,472), Britain (668,765), Austria (69,038), the Czech Republic (n/a), Denmark (105,068), Norway (84,296), Estonia (n/a), Finland (85,329), France (321,233), Ireland (59,441), Italy (126,947), Korea (607,071) and Sweden (206,715).

Australia, Sweden and Britain are thought to supply most tourists to Phuket. Some of the honorary consuls are expats, others are Thais.

One issue known to be of great concern to all honorary consuls is the need for every incident involving expats citizens to be reported immediately to the respective diplomats by police or Immigration officers.

In some cases, decisions about whether incidents should or should not be reported are left to relatively junior officials.