Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration (DASTA) has initiated the practical pubic-private partnerships network of tourist safety and security. The network composes of related governmental and private agencies, particularly Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Provincial Office(Trad), Marine Office 6 (Trad Branch), Koh Chang District Prefect, Koh Chang subdistrict municipality, Tambol Koh Chang Tai Administrative Organization, Marine Safety and Environment Bureau, Koh Chang DASTA Initiating the Practical Public-Private Partnerships Network of Tourist Safety and Security in Koh Chang Designated Areas Police, Koh Chang National Park, Bangkok Trad Hospital, marine and land security operation unit, Koh Chang entrepreneurs, tour operators and mass medias.

The main purpose of the safety and security network aim to proactively develop and maintain a safe and secure environment for visitors.?Especially, the network will help to ensure that Koh Chang cluster designated area is a safe place for tourists to travel. In practice, the safety?and security network will implement procedures for dealing with visitor related incidents or crises, deliver pro-active activities to increase visitor awareness and prevent safety and security related incidents as well as to liaise, facilitate, coordinate and train on visitor safety and?security issues.

Operations to reduce all tourists? risks and prevent the foreseen incidents caused tourist unsafe and insecurity will be implemented by well trained staffs and volunteers together with utilizing effective communication and media. Mr. Worasit Rojanapanich, DASTA?s Director-General, contents that the safety and security network will be comprised 4 stages of operational practice. At the first stage, strategic

plan on the safety and security network will be reviewed and rearranged so as to initiate the integrated approach to incident management?and key roles of all partners. The second stage will be emphasized on comprehensive training in all aspects of the implementable practices in the protection and emergency services? Ambulance, Fire, Hospitals, sea and in land rescue etc. Procurement of all necessitated safety and security appliances will be settled in the third stage. And at the fourth stage, staffs and volunteers will be trained ready for undertaking?the protection and emergency services. Recently the safety and security network has been supervised and directed by Koh Chang Chief District Officer (Nai amphor), Deputy Commissioner of Koh Chang police office and Chief of marine and land rescue operations. Meanwhile tourist information and security services centre at Kai Bea see view has been settled. There are staffs station at the centre to responsible for and provide of services for tourists 24 hours to inform the protection services area representatives and communicate within the safety and security services network of any visitor related incident. Under this centre there are 5 related sub centres, named Haad Trai Khao, Haad Trai Kao Resort, Haad Bai Laan, Haad Klong Prao and Baan Bang Bao.

These sub centres will help provide some emergency aid to mitigate and reduce incident risk of tourists. They will also transmit all incident?information to Kai Bea Centre for overall help if there is the extreme emergency case. At Kai Bea Centre all information will be collected and?immediately transmitted to all related agencies, i.e., Bangkok Trad Hospital, police station, marine and land security operation unit. Mr. Rojanapanich claimed that at the final stage of network development Koh Chang cluster designated area will become the safety place for all tourists both domestic and foreign visitors. This will help initiate the good image of Koh Chang as the most safety and security destination for tourists. DASTA will always pay attention to and put all efforts for building up capability of the network to meet international standard in the near future.

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