Dear

Is it too late to wish everybody a fantastic new year? The Thailand and the Myanmar team have been very busy over the holidays, to ensure all our travellers have a great time, last minute itinerary changes were arranged smoothly and we ensured everybody had a fantastic holiday.

For 2024, I do wish for a peaceful Myanmar that hopefully sees the end of the civil war and a return to stability and democracy. For Thailand, I hope for an opportunity to show more travellers the beauty of Thailand’s secondary destinations, the true hospitality in the Thai country side and possibilities for more Thai people in the country side to earn a living in experiential tourism.

Chanthaburi – a Thai gem!

Our regular agents already know that we love to include a night in Chanthaburi in our itineraries, as we think this charming town should not be missed out on, while on the way to Ko Chang, Ko Kood or Ko Mak, or on the way back from our southern Isaan tour. This town used to be famous for gem stones and trading, resulting in great cultural mix of people including Chinese, Vietnamese, Christians, Cambodian and even African influences. While today Chanthaburi province is more known for the best quality tropical fruits, including durian, rambutan, jackfruit and mangosteen. Exploration Travel created a fantastic trip in the orchards around Chanthaburi to meet with a local orchard owner, have lunch of local specialities (and family recipe’s) and awaken your taste senses with a tropical fruit tasting in the middle of an orchard.

Staying overnight in Chanthaburi is truly special as we take you to a restored historical building that serves as a museum as well as a hotel and has over 500 shareholders who are mostly also the neighbours; that is what we call a good example of community-based tourism!

The Chanthaburi waterfront is a beautiful traditional area along the river with some charming restaurants, beautiful architecture and two historical hotels. The Baan Luang Raja Maitri is a stunning property in colonial style with a beautiful terrace on the riverside where a fantastic breakfast is served (prepared by the neighbouring shop). The other community property, in the same street is the Punyas Thiti Villa which is equally stunningly renovated and has a more Chinese atmosphere. 

Chanthaburi has not yet been discovered by Western tourists, while the popularity is growing in amongst Thai tourists. Contact us to include this in your client’s itinerary or have a look at our website.

Algorithm tourism – is it sustainable?

When I personally look for a new destination to visit, I used to Google “visit …….” and looked at the pictures. I guess that’s how most of us do it. Try doing this for your native country and you probably get to see the cliché places that you might not even have visited yourself (and not consider to be a must-visit area). Yet, the more it pops-up on a traveller’s screen, the more you think you are missing out, if you skip the place. And the more people visit the place, the higher it scores in the Google listings. I call it algorithm tourism; it is often not based on the quality of the travel experience. 

This algorithm tourism also means that all tourists are consolidated to just a few locations in a country (most people never go to page 2 or 3 on Google) which leads to an excess of travellers, environmental waste, less joy for the original inhabitants. Tourism becomes unsustainable and even worse “a place gets spoiled”. I think we all know examples in Europe of over-tourism.

Thailand is not unique in this and we see in tourism that everything is consolidated to a few places (Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and Pattaya to name a few) while a lot of people in the rest of the country don’t see any benefit of the tourism dollars. This despite all efforts from TAT Thailand to promote other destinations in the country. 

It’s our goal to take our clients away from the algorithm tourism and look beyond the usual tourist sights to experience the uniqueness of Thailand. I think this is very much in line with many boutique tour operators and travel agents worldwide and we invite you to work with us and show your clients the benefits of using a travel agent.

Bangkok on 2 wheels

The end of the year is a good time to reflect, and what a year it has been. We can’t believe how much we have achieved in less than 10 months: we set out new itineraries, renovated 2 heritage houses in old town into a beautiful office, built an excellent team of travel specialists with the unstoppable, positive energy of our General Manager Stefan. Besides that, we found creative people all around Thailand to work with us, showing our clients the best of their own region or neighbourhoods. 

In a short time, we already managed to show hundreds of travellers a unique Thailand, craft new itineraries and partnership with tour operators from all over the world. Thank you all for your support!

In case you are reading this newsletter and didn’t get in touch yet, send me an email (edwin@exploration.travel) to discuss how we can show your clients something unique.

Thank you for all agents who continue to support the Exploration Travel food campaign, donating is still possible and appreciated: https://www.gofundme.com/f/food-for-families-in-myanmar 

All roads and waterways to Lalay Lodge closed

Despite all this,  I stay positive; this too shall pass. Meanwhile, we stay very busy with our sister company Counselling Corner to keep people around the country mentally strong and I think it helps myself staying sane 😊.

Meanwhile, we are very positive about our operations in Thailand and LOVE to work with more agents and tour operators worldwide.

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Edwin Briels and his team have been creating experiences for travellers for over 20 years. Edwin Briels continuously finds new paths to travel and new experiences to show clients the story of Myanmar and Thailand and engages you in a fascinating journey through this part of Asia with the most fascinating stories.