Chatuchak smartens up to draw more tourists
THE decades-old bustling Chatuchak weekend market is to become more tourist friendly with the construction of an automatic car park and expansion of parking nearby to accommodate an additional 4,000 vehicles and also introduction of online marketing, Thai News Agency said today (March 20).
Siripong Prukthiphan, Executive director of State Railway of Thailand’s land development project and the chairman of Chatuchak Market Management, said this weekend market is an important trading landmark with there being 10,000 SMEs there and that is why improvements are being made.
“To support Thailand 4.0 policy a new application has been worked out for Chatuchak Weekend Market with this showing the way to various shops and popular products will be posted online just as on the Chinese website Alibaba.
“Part of these shops’ income is generated through selling products to the provinces or exporting them but they are being turned into tourist attractions and online and social media trading is starting.”
Mr Siripong added that tourists incessantly come to this market, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indians and Europeans, and they mostly buy souvenirs and eat there and that is why various facilities such as parking and sending goods are so important.
With this in mind SRT plans to build an automatic car park for around 200 cars like in Japan with an investment of 400,000 baht and it is in the midst of arranging bidding for the private sector to come operate it. Moreover parking space for 2,000 vehicles is being arranged at Queen Sirikit Park with there to be shuttle buses for all to use and golf carts too for the elderly. Areas all around will also be improved with these changes increasing parking by 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles.
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Top: A very small part of the huge Chatuchak Weekend Market with the 10,000 shops there selling almost everything a shopper can imagine. Photo: Mark Fischer (CC-BY-SA-2.)
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