Mayor Chalermluck met taxi drivers yesterday (Aug 28) and explained that the event, being held today through Sunday night (Aug 30), will bring many people to the town.
The festival, originally scheduled to be held at Loma Park, has now been moved to be centred at the beach end of Bangla Rd.
There may be not enough parking spaces along the front of the beach, and so Patong Municipality made more parking spaces available at Loma Park and at the Laem Petch football field located directly across the beach road, Mayor Chalermluck explained.
“But the areas are quite far from the main venue of the event, and so we arranged for tuk-tuk drivers and motorbike taxi drivers to charge only B20 per person for taking them to and from the main venue area,” she said.
Although the fares were much cheaper than usual, the event will still bring the drivers some much-needed income, she added.
“All drivers together agreed to provide this service at the set rate,” Mayor Chalermluck confirmed.
The ‘Phuket Tastival & Seafood Gastronomy’ has been touted as one of the main events expected to bring Thai tourists to Phuket, hopefully through tourists taking advantage of the We Travel Together domestic tourism campaign.
The “rolling festival” has been scheduled to be held at six locations across the island over six consecutive weekends.
The festival was launched at Saphan Hin on Aug 15-17, with Deputy Prime Minister Jurin Laksanawisit leading the opening ceremony, and was held at Rawai Pier in Rawai last weekend (Aug 22-23).
After Patong, the festival is to be held at Palai Pier in Chalong on Sept 5-6, at Queen Sirikit Park in Phuket Town on Sept 12-13, and at Laguna Grove in Cherng Talay on Sept 19-20.