The Chiang Mai Bargain Hunter:

The Bargain Hunter Shopping Programme

Press release – 25th September 2006

The launch of an innovative new Thailand guidebook is poised to change the way tourists and travel agents view Chiang Mai. Wrongly considered a stopover and not a destination in its own right, most visitors still skim the surface of the Kingdom’s 700-year old northern capital. Amongst the myriad other attractions, unique and valuable shopping opportunities are aspects very often missed.

Tourist purchases have traditionally centred on department stores, and the tourist-choked Night Bazaar. For years also, middle men taking captive audiences to ‘recommended’ shops have thrived on the generous commissions generated by the overpriced and often inferior goods sold to their gullible clients.

Overseas visitors therefore rarely discover Chiang Mai's hidden wealth of small galleries, studios, potteries, workshops and weaving outlets. However, if you ask any Thai on the plane to Chiang Mai from Bangkok the reason for their visit, "shopping" is the predictable reply - but not of course, buying where the tourists go.

Chiang Mai's Shopping Secrets is an intensively researched guidebook, which provides tourists with invaluable information on all aspects of genuine "Thai" shopping, featuring a list of over 3,000 businesses, painstakingly indexed and mapped. Compiled by Track of the Tiger T.R.D. (The Tourism Resources Development Company) also responsible for the much acclaimed white paper ‘Redeveloping & Repositioning Chiang Mai for tourism’, which showed that tourism development was inhibited when small businesses were being marginalised, and that tourists were not being exposed to the city's best buys, this richly illustrated publication is a shopper’s “must”

It contains detailed maps, plus information on identifying fakes, market areas, festivals, product overviews and descriptions, buying tips, and a feast of interesting features by guest writers on subjects such as ceramics, lacquer, gold, bronze, gemstones, handmade paper, textiles, cotton silk, basketry, teak, and leather.

Each new and updated edition of the book will feature a "special secret" highlighting a yet-to-be discovered “gem” The first edition features the little-known pottery and earthenware village of Muang Kung

The guide is interactive, with customer feedback, e-commerce, CRM and shipping solutions via this dedicated website

Consultant to the company, Shane K Beary, is convinced that through creative collaboration between the stakeholders (NTO’s, the tourism and hotel industry, the arts & crafts associations, the airlines and government departments responsible for export promotion and development), Chiang Mai can triple its ‘visitor nights spent’, and quadruple tourism and shopping revenues within as little as 3 years.

The message to “spend another day" in Chiang Mai is appropriate, and with this excellent book’s treasure trove of ideas, the visitor may find this easily extending to a week.

For more information: buying the book, advertising rates, affiliate sales programmes, and detail on collaboration, contact: tiger@loxinfo.co.th

THE BARGAIN HUNTER SHOPPING PROGRAMME

A “Design it yourself” shopping programme.

The programme:

Using your copy of Chiang Mai’s Shopping Secrets determine exactly which shops / outlets you wish to visit, and in which order of priority you wish to visit them, and the driver follows you instruction to the letter. Shopkeepers seeing your book, will know that you are our programme and will expect you to ask for a discount on any purchase.

Half Day programme – Baht 3,000.-
Full Day programme – Baht 4,000.-
(per vehicle 1-9 people)

Price includes:

Guide/driver plus vehicle for up to 9 people.
(with a good enough understanding of English to follow your instructions)

Price does not include:

The book purchase price @ Baht 595.- (app. US$ 17.-).

We believe you that by using this book you will recover its cost in savings made – within your first hour of shopping.

TIP: restrict your group size when shopping, the more people in the group, the more compromises you’ll have to make.
Insurance.

Price does not include:

Meals or refreshment.
Fuel charged at Baht 3,0 – per kilometre.

Note* It would be unlikely that you exceed 100 kms in a full day of shopping.

Optional Extra – A Shopping Assistant

We have a limited number of staff who have been or are in training as shopping assistants, which provides them with a working knowledge of the Chiang Mai product, and who have been trained by DHL to provide on the air freight quotations and time estimates for getting your goods back to your home country.

Price: Baht 1,500.- per half or full day.

To book the tour programme which runs all year around, or top order the book, contact Khun Chintana – tours@track-of-the-tiger.com or buy it off this website.

CHIANG MAI’S SHOPPING SECRETS – THE PANG SOONG NATURE TRAIL – SPA PACKAGES – CITY & TEMPLE TOURS – CHIANG MAI & CHIANG RAI PACKAGES – JUST KHAO SOY DINNER PACKAGES