The bureau is enriching the upper north of Thailand to become a hub of international business events on tea and coffee.
The Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) is scaling up the creative economy and local community product initiatives by supporting Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai through three major projects this year.
Mr Puripan Bunnag, Senior Vice President of TCEB, disclosed that to promote the business events industry in the North of Thailand, TCEB is pushing the upper north into a MICE hub for tea and coffee.
Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai have been selected to become a global-scale city of tea and coffee due to their geographical suitability for the two-crop plantation, apart from their wealth in natural resources and distinctive cultures.
Towards that goal, Mr Puripan says that the first project will be to support events such as the World Tea and Coffee Expo. The second project is to lend its support to MICE Cities and other cities in the north that exhibit potential for destination marketing by developing their City DNA into a unique selling point. The third project is to integrate business travel promotion with the Creative MICE initiative and involve local communities in the north in developing new MICE routes and local community products for MICE.
TCEB will continue to lend its support for holding events in the north. One key event, the “Conference of Thailand Tea and Coffee Network 2023”, held between 6 and 8 July in Chiang Rai, is a collaboration between TCEB, the Tea and Coffee Institute of Mae Fah Luang University, related government agencies in Chiang Rai and tea & coffee entrepreneurs. The conference is expected to attract over 350 visitors and generate around 1.5 million baht in revenue.
This conference is playing a part in upgrading the tea and coffee industry of Chiang Rai and driving the province to become a city of tea and coffee in response to the provincial policy. It also aligns with TCEB’s five-year (2023 – 2027) strategic plan, which focuses on highlighting the city’s unique identity to lift its potential in attracting and holding MICE events.
Under the World Tea and Coffee Expo umbrella, the 4th Tea and Coffee International Symposium, to be held in Chiang Rai next month, aims to develop business networks that will lead to investment channels.
Capacity-building initiatives will be implemented to raise the potential and create a network between northern farmers and producers from outside the region so that their collaboration will result in the upper north of Thailand becoming a centre of production, trade, investment and business travel on tea and coffee of the ASEAN region. The tea and coffee routes of the North and the South will be developed and connected for MICE purposes, which will make a debut in Songkhla province between 7 and 10 September 2023.
To extend support for the tea and coffee industry in Chiang Rai and raise broader public awareness, TCEB is holding the “Experience new MICE dimension in Chiang Rai” initiative as part of its domestic marketing promotion campaign “MICE Dimension-New Dimension. Discover Your MICE Experience in Thailand”.
To do that, TCEB is taking a group of press members on its familiarization trip to experience tea and coffee routes. The visit is made to “Ban Pha Hi”, an eco-tourism community, one of Thailand’s largest coffee production sites. The press can learn the sufficient way of life of the Akha hill tribe. There will be a tea brewing demonstration using water with different TDSs (Total Dissolved Solids), which affect the taste and colour of the tea, at Sawanbondin Farm & Tea House. The trip also includes a CSR activity at Len Dai Museum. There, visitors will be exposed to the woods home to ideal raw materials for making unique folk toys for children, ensuring sustainability for the community.
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