Background and introduction of the company
Mr.Somsak Boonkam (Pai) was born and raised in rural Thailand where he developed a deep appreciation for the ingenuity of rural cultures. He is even more fascinated by the role of sustainable livelihood. He completed a Bachelor's degree in Petrochemicals and Polymeric Materials Engineering and an MBA in Sustainable Management at the Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. After three years as an engineer for a German manufacturing company, He saved enough money to travel around Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, and India. He saw many problems.
After watching burglars rob someone on the streets of India one day, He thought to himself: Could he do something to change this inequality and lack of economic opportunity? He decided to further his studies in Sustainability Management and returned to Thailand with a whole new perspective on social entrepreneurship. He created Local Alike with the goal to expose and share the wisdom of indigenous people to the mass tourism market. In return, he hopes to develop sustainable products and services that have a positive impact on local communities.
In reality, the idea of Local Alike occurs gradually from the time Mr.Somsak worked in the Mae Fah Luang Foundation 1 year. He learned a lot of community work. When reaching its peak, it begins to ensure that Local Alike is a concept that can help society sufficiently. He decided to resign, then made seriously.
Local Alike is a platform that we wanted to do more to link the CBT with tourists interested in sustainable tourism together. We are not just a platform but we also serves as a partner with the community long term by work together on developing tourism model that what we are proposing and what kind of trip. Provide a tool to help in the development of the tourism community. The main purpose of the Local Alike will solve three things together.
First, revenue from tourism in Thailand a lot, with GDP is the top. But the question is how much the income that it came down to the community or actually goes into the large hotels and tour companies other than. The major tour operator’s most foreign investors are not Thailand. At the same time, sustainable tourism the root of it is really about community. Then the community would have the potential and ability already. The Community Based Tourism in Thailand has more than 100 communities were developed by the community truly comes to tourism. But the problem is, they have no access to visitors and tourists will not reach them. This is the second issue.
Another problem is the tourists; he felt that he was deceived. Today, the trend sustainable tourism a lot. Visitors from 22 million people, with about 20% to pay attention to this tour. But what he was really just a certain angle such as you go around this community that is sustainable for you but it is not in our view. Really sustainability must come from the people who own the resources. They decided to make the trip by itself. So we wanted a group that really interest this trip have the opportunity to learn more deeply. If compare with the tour package in current that most tour companies offering guided by the company. This is not the operator communities. So what is learned actually may be not large the roots of communities. Local Alike want to change the words 'Sustainable Tourism' in Thailand to better it.