Present at the ceremony were Karon Police Chief Col Prawit Sutthirueangarun, Maj Eakkachai Siri of the Phuket Tourist Police, Karon Mayor Tawee Thongcham, Karon Kamnan Winai Chidchiew, Phuket Provincial Office Chief Administrative Officer (Palad) Anupong Wawongmoon and host of other officials.
Also present was Former Phuket Senator Tunyaratt Achariyachai, who also previously served for years as the Chair of the Senate committee for Tourism, as well as Rawai Mayor Aroon Solos and the contingent of lifeguards that patrol Karon Beach.
“We want to improve our service for local residents and tourists, so we opened this new Tourist Police box on Karon Beach, in order to build tourists’ confidence and make them feel safe,” Maj Eakkachai said.
“Karon Beach is an important attraction of Phuket where there should be a Tourist Police box,” he added.
The centre, located on the Karon beachfront in front of Karon Public Park, between the Nong Harn lagoon and the beach just north of Karon Circle, is open daily from 8am to 6pm.
“If tourists are unable to come to the service centre, they can call Tourist Police hotline 1155. The hotline has interpreters, who can then inform Tourist Police officers at the service of the incident and tell them where the officers should go,” Maj Eakkachai said.
The Tourist Police service centre at Karon was among the first three such centres to open in Phuket under a campaign by the Tourist Police to set up 12 such centres on the island in order to improve their services and response times to incidents.
The other two centres already set up are at the airport and in Patong.
A fourth centre was opened in Kamala in June. (See story here.)
At the Kamala opening, also officiated by Maj Gen Anukoo, Maj Ekkachai confirmed, “Each Tourist Police mobile centre costs about B400,000 to set up, all funded by the Ministry of Tourism & Sports.”
However, he added, “We don’t know when the other eight centres will open in the future.”