This agro-tourism project is scheduled from 1998 to 2001 and especially targets foreign tourists who prefer to experience Thailand s countryside. The first agro-tourism center officially opened last November at the Hua Mae Kham hilltribe community in Chiang Rai province, and accommodation, homestay and farmstay are expected to be introduced by the end of this year. Last January, Health Minister Korn Dabaransri, announced the TAT would be asked to distribute pamphlets promoting tours called Seven Days in Thailand For Your Health . This special tourism campaign is part of an ambitious plan by the minister to introduce and promote local herbal products on the world market. It would focus on attracting business executives and wealthy credit card users, Korn explained.
Westerners are health conscious.
Herb research is done in the West and so is the marketing. Such tours, concerned parties said, would instead give abusers the opportunity to exploit local wisdom for the sake of interested foreign corporations. TTMI director Pennapha Sapcharoen tried to play down the issue, insisting the new health package tours would be designed in a way to prevent any exploitation. But she did not elaborate on how to deal with abuses, which are likely to occur. Critics say, Thailand still does not have adequate laws to protect local knowledge and rights, nor to prevent the unfair patenting of life forms.