PHUKET: Stag parties on boats are to become a focus of attention as the most intense crackdown on guides and tour businesses on Phuket begins from the middle of this month.
For the first time, officers from Phuket's 10 police stations are being enlisted to nab foreign guides and to shut down shonky businesses.
The police will report to the Royal Thai Navy on a daily basis once the crackdown begins in earnest in mid-September.
Boats that hold stag events at sea off Phuket with Thai women provided by the tour organisers are likely to face intensive questioning, according to Phuket Tourism and Sport Director Santi Pawai, who chaired today's meeting.
Some photographs taken from the internet were projected onto a screen, showing suspicious activities on board charter vessels, and some half-naked people.
Khun Santi, who is now in charge of the registration of guides, says genuine businesses have time to register before September 15 but police are being instructed to arrest anyone who cannot produce proper documentation from then on.
Any foreigner still working as a guide in the Thai-only working role after September 15 will be arrested, the meeting heard, although care will be taken not to leave visiting parties of tourists in the lurch.
A Royal Thai Navy representatives asked the police station officers whether they had enough staff to handle the new role and Navy personnel were offered to supplement numbers at one Phuket police station.
With a data base of genuine guides and tour companies now being compiled, reaction of police in the second two weeks of September is expected to be swift and thorough.
When Khun Santi was appointed to the role of supervising the business and guide registration branch, he was told that no crackdown had ever been carried out on the companies and individuals involved.
The crackdown that begins in the middle of September is likely to be as serious as it gets.
With representatives of all Phuket police stations at today's meeting were officials from the Labor Office, Marine Office 5, the Phuket Tourism Association, Tourist Police and the Business Development Office.
For the first time, officers from Phuket's 10 police stations are being enlisted to nab foreign guides and to shut down shonky businesses.
The police will report to the Royal Thai Navy on a daily basis once the crackdown begins in earnest in mid-September.
Boats that hold stag events at sea off Phuket with Thai women provided by the tour organisers are likely to face intensive questioning, according to Phuket Tourism and Sport Director Santi Pawai, who chaired today's meeting.
Some photographs taken from the internet were projected onto a screen, showing suspicious activities on board charter vessels, and some half-naked people.
Khun Santi, who is now in charge of the registration of guides, says genuine businesses have time to register before September 15 but police are being instructed to arrest anyone who cannot produce proper documentation from then on.
Any foreigner still working as a guide in the Thai-only working role after September 15 will be arrested, the meeting heard, although care will be taken not to leave visiting parties of tourists in the lurch.
A Royal Thai Navy representatives asked the police station officers whether they had enough staff to handle the new role and Navy personnel were offered to supplement numbers at one Phuket police station.
With a data base of genuine guides and tour companies now being compiled, reaction of police in the second two weeks of September is expected to be swift and thorough.
When Khun Santi was appointed to the role of supervising the business and guide registration branch, he was told that no crackdown had ever been carried out on the companies and individuals involved.
The crackdown that begins in the middle of September is likely to be as serious as it gets.
With representatives of all Phuket police stations at today's meeting were officials from the Labor Office, Marine Office 5, the Phuket Tourism Association, Tourist Police and the Business Development Office.
Now let's hope next on the army's list is to rid the island of the Indians and Aussies who work for the time share companies.I am sick of dealing with these people I actually had one young girl want to fight me today because I told her to leave me alone.
Posted by Anonymous on September 4, 2014 22:22