Songkhla Province has been selected to represent Thailand for its application for membership in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network – Gastronomy, receiving a budget of 10 million baht in accordance with the Cabinet resolution. This has created an important ripple effect for stimulating the economy in the private sector, government sector, local organizations, and civil society, while raising awareness and encouraging pride in the identity of the “Charm of the City of Two Seas and Three Waters” for the collective initiative under the main principle of “Songkhla Gastronomy for Health and Wellbeing”.
Brother Am – Mr. Chanwitthaya Suksawangkrai, President of Songkhla Community Tourism Promotion Association, a subcommittee for promoting awareness of the Creative City, says that the association has been promoting the objective of using tourism as a tool for continuous development of communities since 2021, including creating a database of community tourism overviews, collecting information on 160 menus from across 16 districts, linking networks from all sectors, developing the potential of community chefs, and organizing a menu competition to reflect identity and resource bases, among other activities.
The Association has jointly developed four community tourism routes that honor local cuisine, encompassing mountains, forests, rice fields, the sea, swamp forest, gardens, hillock and canals: (1) Luang Pu Thuat – Wat Ton Lieb route; (2) Ko Yo – Khao Daeng; (3) Lower Utaphao Canal Basin, Mae Tom, Khu Tao, Bang Hrian, Khok Mueang, Bang Klam; (4) Ko Laen Nang. The Sating Phra Peninsula area focuses on sugar palm, while the Bang Klam, Bang Hrian, and Khok Mueang areas are outstanding for their wisdom of the “hundred-wire lunchbox”.
However, many limitations are still encountered in the promotion of Creative Cities, gastronomy tourism, and the Soft Power movement. Both government and local sectors still refuse to acknowledge their importance and thus limit cooperation, while the public sector still views it as a distant and irrelevant matter. The Association has proposed a plan for Songkhla Province to distribute formal letters to all local administrative organizations in order to increase awareness, promote the matter to be included as an important agenda in the operational plans of sub-district administrative organizations and municipalities, and support training regarding knowledge of local culinary wisdom. The district chef is the host of a meeting between village leaders and sub-district leaders, during which this agenda must be included. In addition, all areas must cooperate in instigating activities with regard to both organization and communication.
“Currently, gastronomy remains a segregated field. Therefore, the establishment of a central provincial database system is proposed, as Big Data, with the PAO as host, in order to establish a working mechanism and coordinate networks to collaborate, establish a dedicated command center, integrate resources and personnel, and invite influencers to participate in communication, in order to collectively attract visitors and tourists to our Songkhla” – Brother Am.