Chalermpol NaNakorn, Managing Director/Owner of the Baan Rim Pa group of restaurants, attended the gala award ceremony in Bangkok on June 12 to receive the award.
Baan Rim Pa was the only Phuket operation to win any of the awards.
Presiding over the event was Deputy Prime Minister Gen Tanasak Patimapragorn, accompanied by Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul and TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn.
The Baan Rim Pa restaurant group, established in 1989, consists of four award-winning restaurants: Baan Rim Pa Patong, Joe’s Downstairs, Da Maurizio Bar Ristorante and the latest edition Baan Rim Pa Kalim.
Over the years the group have collected numerous awards and accolades, including the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence and in 2015 and 2016 they received Best of the Best Two Glass award. Only 12 restaurants in Thailand received this award and their group took out three of them.
The latest achievement is second year in a row the group has been voted Thailand’s top restaurant in the TAT People’s Choice awards.
“The management and team are absolutely thrilled to once again have won this prestigious award,” Sue Ultmann, the group’s Executive Manager & Marketing Director, told The Phuket News.
“Anyone in the restaurant business knows how tough it is. You watch them come and go every day. Extremely hard work and a great team in all areas is what makes you successful. We continue to strive to be and continue to be the best,” Ms Ultmann said.
The “2017 People’s Choice Awards Thailand Voted by Chinese Tourists” attracted 3.7 million votes during the two-week voting period and reached an audience of 45 million, reported the TAT.
Votes were cast for the country’s 14 most popular tourist attractions and activities as well as medical and wellness services.
TAT organised the voting campaign in partnership with Tencent, which owns several major Chinese online channels, such as WeChat (570 million users per day), QZone (330 million users per day), QQMusic (70 million users per day) and Tencent News (27 million users per day).
During the first four months of this year, Thailand welcomed 12 million visitors, spending around B620 billion, an increase of 4.71% on the same period last year. Of these visitors, 7.5 million came from East Asia, generating B308bn.
China remained the leading source market at about 3.2 million arrivals, who generated B161bn in tourism revenue.