Hardly a week passed without the Paetongtarn Shinawatra mentioning the term “soft power”.
Earlier this week the PM even launched a “one family one soft power” initiative, whatever that is supposed to mean.
While people in the English-speaking world understood soft power, particularly in international politics as the ability to co-opt instead of coercing other states through hard power by means of making one’s country appealing and attractive through the use of culture, political values, and foreign policies to enact change, Thais defined the term soft power with more confined focus on how to make Thai culture, or traditional and contemporaries, both tangible and intangible, more appealing to the world in order to attract more foreign tourists and sell more Thai food, and products, around the world.
Without blowing Thailand’s horn, which has been on many global ranking lists as surveys as a leading tourists and food destinations, here’s my two cents (or two satangs) on what we can do to elevate Thailand’s soft power in 2025 and beyond.
The keyword is to focus on excellence in everything we do.
Food and drinks:
On food, the government is on the right track to promote regional Thai foods. It’s time to educate the world about the different regional Thai foods and how they differ from one another. The days of promoting pad thai, tom yum kung, som tum, and green curry are over. Let’s do more to promote less familiar regional food to foreigners in hope they can soon be accustomed and enjoy a wide range of regional Thai foods.
Khao soi, the northern curry noodle, is already making a mark with a popular restaurant specializing in the dish operating in London, for example. The fact that Sorn, a Bangkok-based Southern Thai restaurant became the first Thai restaurant to be awarded three Michelin stars this year should also help promote and familiarize more foreigners to southern-Thai cuisine.
Nevertheless, the focus should be on quality and affordability, any public and private initiatives to improve the qualities and taste of classic Thai dishes including pad thai and pad kra pao, through annual competitions, awards, and promotions, should be the path.
As for drinks, local craft beer is making its mark but the government should assist them to ensure its price is more competitive. The same can be said about the nascent cacao farming. I talked to a Thai cacao farmer who works in Tak province earlier this year and he said while they swear in the quality of Thai cacao, hot chocolate, chocolate bar, and more, the government can and should do more to reduce or altogether lift the taxes for imported machineries used in the industry.
As for single origin Thai arabica coffee, they are doing alright as more Thais developed more sophisticated tastes for a good cup of espresso, americano, flat white, or drip coffee, but perhaps it’s time to come up with a new Thai way of preparing a good cup of coffee. Japan invented dirty coffee, Australia concocted flat white, now we need something specifically Thai and modern in order to elevate Thai coffee soft power. Back to alcoholic beverages, some are now making decent Thai rum and that should be our natural strength as we have all the required raw materials, be it in sugarcane, pineapple, and more to make quality rum.
More challenging is making a decent bottle of single malt whisky but ThaiBev this year launched Thailand’s first premium single malt whisky in an ambitious move (more of that in the next few days on Khaosod English) These are drinks, both alcoholic and non alcoholic and Thai embassies abroad can serve with pride to further strengthen Thailand’s soft power.
Travel and tourism:
As for Thailand as a tourist destination, the government via TAT should try harder to promote new less-known destinations and make sure they are adequately accessible from big cities like Bangkok. The focus should also be how locals and small businesses benefit more. We should also focus more on wealthy tourists from neighbouring countries where flying to Thailand takes no more than 5 hours because it makes shorter trips (read weekends) and repeated visits more viable. Come 2025, we should also seriously capitalize on our ethnic Indian communities.
While Bangkok’s Chinatown is already an established tourist and food destination, the next-door Little India, or Phahurat Road, has been more or less neglected by the Tourism Authority of Thailand. It’s time to find ways to make Phahurat and tourist destination in its own right (which will further boost next-door Yaowarat, or Chinatown) and make our small but diligent Thai-Indian communities more visible as they can further promote the diversity of Bangkok and beyond through their food, music, and culture.
Also, an estimated one to two million or so migrant workers from Myanmar who are mostly invisible in Bangkok should be able to celebrate their cultures, food, and diversities. This is not just about making Bangkok more attractive tourist destination but will make these hardworking workers from Myanmar feel more at home and proud and educate Thai people in the process.
Come Jan 22, 2025, same-sex marriage will be legalised in Thailand and the LGBT-friendly culture will further boost Thai tourism and ensure greater equal rights among Thais. This is where Thailand can use its soft power to convince others that equal rights for all is the way to go.
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