Increasing Sustainable Tourism in Rural Thailand
This project was awarded 1st Place at the 6th Asia Pacific Youth Exchange 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand, a program hosted by Urban Youth Academy and co-organized by the United Nations Development Program (“UNDP”) and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (“UNESCAP”). Project team includes: Yuexi Du, Chareef Wattana, Baolin Zhang, Jaehee Kim, and Corinna Kasiman.
Background
Plean Yod Tarn is a community enterprise located at Nang Tha Kean in Samut Songkram province — about 2 hours away from Bangkok. It is one of the only places left in Thailand that still makes 100% organic coconut sugar in the traditional way, using a stove called tao tarn, but the locals are in danger of losing this culture. The community enterprise is not yet profitable and the area faces low tourism. We were tasked to improve the situation, with the condition that the community be able to mostly keep their current way of life.
Making coconut sugar in the traditional way using tao tarn
Recommendation
We proposed to create a story-based tourism that would create hype among visitors and citizens who are looking for unique and alternative travel experiences. With this new approach, we created a story (and video) that links all the activities together, which includes making coconut sugar, riding boats in the coconut farm canals, adopting a coconut, etc., and re-evaluated and modified the current business model to support ongoing operations and ensure continuity.
Social Innovation
Of particular interest is our flagship “Adopt-a-Coconut” initiative where visitors and interested people could name, plant, and adopt their very own coconut, either at the farm themselves, or through the internet from the comfort of their homes. The farm will then keep in touch with the adopters/sponsors via regular updates on the farm and the growth of the coconuts. We intended this to be an inexpensive and fun way to raise the profile of the community enterprise, and for everyone to get involved, be a part of the community, and contribute to the success story of Plean Yod Tarn.
More details to follow.