The governor of TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) wants to put ‘hidden gems’ from the Pokemon Go game in Buriram.
He hopes to get 12 cities around Thailand included as Hidden Gem Cities to help boost tourism.
The 12 Hidden Gems cities would be: Lampang; Phetchabun; Nan; Buriram; Loei; Samut Songkhram; Ratchaburi; Trat; Chanthaburi; Trang; Chumphon and Nakhon Si Thammarat.
The idea is that recruiting the help of Pokemon Go would boost tourism, to the 12 destinations, possibly led by young teenage players who would in turn recruit their families or friends to join them.
In case you’ve been in complete digital detox for the last few months; Pokemon Go sends players on a hunt to capture beasts that appear at specific sites on their mobile phone map. The game app uses GPS to track the user’s whereabouts and overlays relevant little monsters on the graphic map or images at the player’s current location.
According to the TAT it will ask the developer to add rare Pokemon that pop up at specific tourist destinations specifically to be activated in the evenings to encourage travellers to stay overnight.
It’s not recommended that youngsters to use the game alone in unfamiliar areas for safety reasons of course.
The plan is in it’s early stages as the governor Yuthasak Supasorn has yet to get agreement from the games developers. It may give a boost to tourism should the games huge popularity continue, although Buriram is already booming .