Somsak "Pai" Boonkam is the founder and CEO of Local Alike (http://fb.com/LocalAlike), although he does prefer the title social worker, as this describes what he does through his noted social enterprise more accurately. Through various trips and travel packages arranged by Local Alike, he has connected travellers with various local communities to create a unique travel experience based on the concept of community-based tourism. Pai tells us how people can give back while expanding their horizons through travel.
Basically, it's tourism that takes environmental, social and cultural sustainability into consideration. It is managed and owned by the community, for the community. The initial idea for Local Alike started when I helped two hill tribe villages develop their homestay business plans. I connected them with leading tour operators in Bangkok but it eventually failed because the tour operators questioned the locals' ability to provide good services for travellers. I also had travelled to countries such as Laos, Myanmar and India where I saw lots of inequality, malnutrition, poverty and a lack of education and economic opportunities that affected people living in the rural areas.
Tell us what community-based tourism is. How did the idea for Local Alike come about?
I experienced these similar situations myself during my childhood, but I was fortunate enough that my parents worked hard so that I could go to school. I then asked myself a question: Do I want to continue being an engineer to please customers, or be a change-maker to help others gain the opportunities they might otherwise never receive? I decided to start Local Alike in 2002 to bring economic opportunities to locals through responsible and sustainable tourism.
What is Local Alike about?
We're a social enterprise focused on creating solutions for local villages. We assist locals in setting up their community-based tourism businesses and help them achieve their development goals. We curate unique experiences across Thailand while making sure that 70% of what you pay goes back to the host communities. We love Thailand dearly and our promise is to transform how everyone travels in our country, giving a larger share of the money made from the tourism industry back to the locals.
Each community has its own uniqueness. Our team, together with the locals, will come up with activities based around the availability of resources in each community. Each trip is curated and unique -- they will be different due to each community's unique landscape and way of life. You can be a fisherman or a rice farmer for a day and get to spend time with the locals. Whether you are a solo traveller, couple, family, student, or a company looking for new experiences, we would love to hear from you.
What kind of impact do you hope to create with Local Alike?
We want to solve some core problems related to tourism in Thailand. Thailand generates billions of baht every year from the tourism industry. Yet, the income is mainly dispersed around urban areas and in favour of large enterprises i.e. hotel chains and large travel agencies. Only a handful of locals benefit from this opportunity. We would like to help distribute at least 10% of this huge income back to local communities, as they are the true owners of all these beautiful resources.
While mass tourism creates jobs and income for locals, the majority of the industry does not answer to the actual need of sustainable development. There are plenty of examples where mass tourism has been damaging to the local communities, environmentally and socially. Oftentimes, the locals were reduced to a supporting role by some travel agencies who brought in people and reaped the profits without giving back to the locals their due share or respect. We don't want this to continue in our region.
There are already about 200 community-based tourism groups in Thailand but they lack a reliable platform that will connect them to prospect customers. Local Alike is dedicated to being this platform for them and to doing more than that. We help them make and plan long term goals to use tourism as a tool to promote development within their communities.
What has been the most rewarding aspect of implementing Local Alike?
I believe it's trust and friendship that has been built between Local Alike and the communities. A trustworthy relationship between us and the locals is invaluable and it enables us to work closely together towards sustainable development. The locals call us from time to time to update us on their lives and always invite us to their personal events, for instance their weddings.
What's your future plan for Local Alike?
With the success we have had so far, we are now ready to expand to 100 local communities in Thailand and neighbouring countries. The goal is to attract at least 15,000 tourists per year, inspire and educate them to be our ambassadors. We would like to promote sustainable tourism in this region.
Any words for those who may want to join a Local Alike trip?
There is a market out there of conscious travellers who are ready to be changemakers in while they travel. I would like to encourage every traveller to talk with the locals, immerse in a different culture and really "travel" and not just "tour".
