The purpose of the meeting was to follow-up on tourist safety in Phuket, Phang Nga, and Krabi provinces and to confirm that local police will have the ability to video-conference with interpreters to better communicate with tourists.
Deputy Commissioner-General Pansak Kasemsan confirmed after the meeting that, because of the annual increase in the number of foreign vacation-goers, Tourist Police headquarters last year asked for a budget from the Tourism Authority of Thailand to hire more interpreters.
“Tourism is the main income of the country. We’ve set interpreter centers. Every province has some interpreters as well as the main center in Bangkok,” Lt Gen Pansak said, “we can ask the interpreters from the center to help the police in more than 1,600 stations to communicate with the tourists by using the conference system.”
Lt Gen Pansak added that, at the moment, 90 per cent of police stations are able to use the system.
“We are preparing at least six interpreters who can translate some of the main languages. Right now we have Chinese, Russian, English and so on. We are looking for people who can speak other languages to be ready for the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) community too.”