Month-long China-Thailand cultural caravan to boost cultural exchange, tourism

BANGKOK, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The third Sino-Thai Culture and Tourism Friendship Caravan will be organized from August to September to boost cultural exchange and tourism, officials said in a press conference here on Monday.

The 5,868-km road trip is set to begin in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, in the north of China on August 22, after which the caravan will pass various cities of China, Laos, Thailand and finally arrived in Thai capital Bangkok late September. An ending ceremony of the trip is set on September 29 here.

Along the trip, a number of tourism promotion activities will be organized in Zhengzhou and Changsha of China and the caravan will pass attractions in Thailand's north, northeast, central and eastern regions.

70 vehicle will participate in the trip when it started as a symbolic tribute to the 70th anniversary of Thai King's accession to the throne. Some 40 people from both China and Thailand will join the whole trip.

Some media from both countries will join the trip and TAT planned to set up an online platform for people to follow the caravan, said Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of TAT.

He also said, "Road travel is the way of the future. The vast improvement in the Asian Highway connectivity is opening up new opportunities for reaching new destinations and better distributing visitors."

TAT said earlier that over 50 percent of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand independently right now, which is a new trend and they expect over 10 million tourists from the Chinese mainland throughout this year.

I believe this trip can make the diversified Chinese culture known by more and more people in Thailand and also make Thai culture known better in China, thus to promote mutual understanding between peoples from both countries, said Chen Jiang, cultural counselor of the Chinese embassy in Thailand.

The trip is organized by TAT, Chinese ministry of culture, the Association for international Exchange of China, the Chinese embassy in Thailand and the China-Thailand Cultural Council.

TAT predicts there will be 15 million views across social media in various Chinese cities set to be visited by the caravan.