Implementation period: From May 2022 (3 years)
background purpose:
Krabi City is located 783 km south of Bangkok, facing the Andaman Sea, and is positioned as the provincial capital responsible for the economy, administration, and services of Krabi Province. Although the city has an international airport and tourism is its main industry, it is heavily dependent on beach resorts outside the city. In Krabi City, there is a high need for tourism and specialty product development to realize a “Tourist City of Art, Culture, History and Ecotourism” that utilizes local resources such as Andaman culture. In the regional strategic development plan to be created in 2015, the goal is to balance the economy centered on the environment and tourism. On the other hand, Nago City celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2020, and has set the role of Nago City as "a small world city in the new era-connecting the world and responding to the needs of the new era-". A feature of Nago City is that it promotes regional revitalization by exchanging and collaborating across fields and organizations such as agriculture, commerce and industry, tourism, culture, and education, and promoting each industry. In addition, the city has experience in international cooperation and human resource development, such as dispatching JICA technical cooperation project experts and accepting trainees. While making use of these experiences of Nago City, we practice branding and product development targeting the history, culture and art of Krabi City, and experience through branding, product creation, system creation, and actual trials as Krabi City. The goal is to establish a system for continuous product development by wearing it.
Activity content:
・May 2023: Project start
・September 2023: 5 people from Nago City, including Mayor Toguchi, and 3 people from Lequio Wings, a total of 8 people, will visit Krabi City to understand the current situation of Krabi City, which is necessary to start the project. ➁We conducted a baseline survey for the purpose of meeting, discussing and coordinating with project-related organizations including Krabi City.
・February 2023: 10 trainees from Krabi City, including Deputy Mayor Changnarong of Krabi City, came to Okinawa to (1) learn about Nago City's policies, tourism, and activities related to local products, and (2) learn from Nago City. Based on this, we conducted a training in Japan with the aim of formulating an action plan that will serve as a guideline for project activities after returning to Japan.
Plans for next year:
During the training in Japan in February 2023, a discussion was held to determine the direction of future activities. As a result, the goals of the project described in the background and purpose above were determined. In the future, we will proceed with discussions with Krabi City regarding specific activities to achieve this goal. In May and October, we plan to send the trainees to Krabi City, and in December, we plan to conduct training in Japan.
