PATA Reaching Out to Tourism’s Forgotten People - The Informal Workers
As of March 23, 2022
Check out the latest programme progress >
While tourism promotes iconic destinations and sites, it’s the people we meet there that bring to life the local experiences that we cherish and remember for years to come. The tourism supply chain is therefore dependent on the people living and working in the host communities.
Many of the people making their living through tourism are, in fact, informal workers - a crucial element of tourism everywhere. They include street food sellers, souvenir sellers, drivers, freelance tour guides, activity providers, artists, and artisans.
Despite this, informal workers are repeatedly ignored when discussing the tourism value chain, even though they make up a majority of tourism employment and provide entrepreneurial opportunities to women, youth, and the elderly. This vital sector lacks voice and is too often excluded from industry discussions.
For example, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been countless studies and discussions on the impacts of lockdowns on the tourism industry with staggering statistics on loss to GDP and employment. Yet these statistics do not give voice to the forgotten people of tourism – the informal workers.
Lacking formal government registration, informal workers can fall through the cracks of social protection and employment benefit schemes. Further, given the informal nature of their livelihoods, it’s also more difficult to assess how the pandemic has impacted them, thus limiting relief efforts. Informal workers, no matter how crucial to a destination’s tourism success, are often forgotten and bear a disproportionate burden during times of crisis.
This led PATA, with the Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism, to ask the question: how has the pandemic affected informal workers within the Thai tourism supply chain? PATA’s research found (to no one’s surprise) that the impacts have indeed been devastating. Upwards of 94% of informal workers in Thai tourism have experienced severe employment impacts, resulting in 86% of respondents falling into extreme financial hardship.
More significantly, PATA’s researchers uncovered the human side of the statistics with many reporting depression, worry and increased family-life stresses. Suicide and other tragic stories were also documented. One PATA researcher felt overwhelmed by the stories received and stated “I was not ready for this … this makes COVID so much worse”.
The research also confirmed the importance of international visitors for informal workers, as they do earn the same level of income from domestic travellers. As a result, 89% of the surveyed group reported that they are eagerly waiting to restart their business activities and welcome back the international tourists.
To meet the challenge of providing a voice for informal workers, as well as to enable a safer, more successful reopening to international travellers, PATA and the Roundtable Human Rights in Tourism have launched a programme to assist informal workers. This programme aims to reconnect the informal workers with the new traveller mindset and train the informal workers to be prepared for safe, welcoming international reopening. It includes many practical aspects of running a sustainable micro-business given the ‘new normal’ that COVID has created.
Designed to spread as many benefits to the community as possible, we hired unemployed freelance tour guides and under-employed tourism professionals to work with PATA staff and civil society organisations to develop support packages. Additionally, throughout the month of December 2021, they will help deliver community-based training to fellow informal workers across the streets and markets of Bangkok, Thailand.
This programme builds upon the research that PATA conducted with focusright between December 2020 and March 2021. The goal is to interact with the community members and support upwards of 500 informal workers and assist them in preparing to safely and effectively welcome back international visitors - and get their livelihoods back-on-track.
We’ll be posting updates on the progress of the programme in December and provide a voice for informal tourism workers welcoming back international tourists to Bangkok.
Updates on the progess:
March 23, 2022:
The project provided incomes for furloughed tourism professionals and unemployed freelance tourism guides.
In the 100 working days during the project, the tourism professionals assisted PATA staff and civil society organisations to develop capacity development packages for informal workers. The packages will assist the informal workers in the reopening of international tourism safely and sustainably.
During the 100 working days, five unemployed freelance tourism guides conducted capacity development programmes with informal tourism supply chain workers in Bangkok, Thailand.
The project assisted one international tourism destination- Bangkok, to safely and sustainably reopen by training 500 informal workers in 15 communities to meet:
health standards and operating safety procedures
provide community-based tourism product re-development, and
understand the new needs & wants of tourists in the post COVID-19 era.
The project disseminated these activities across the Asia Pacific travel and tourism industry with supporting findings of capacity development programmes through online media, learning materials, and international meetings.
December 16, 2021:
Since our last post on December 2, there has been great progress made in the programme to reconnect informal workers with the new traveller mindset. Our goal is to train informal workers to be prepared for a safe and welcoming international reopening. This includes many practical aspects of running a sustainable micro-business given the ‘new normal’ that COVID-19 has created.
Designed to spread as many benefits to the community as possible, PATA hired unemployed freelance tour guides and under-employed tourism professionals to work with the PATA staff and civil society organisations in developing support packages. With our team in place, we have now started delivering community-based trainings to fellow informal workers across the streets and markets of Bangkok, Thailand. Here are some of the highlights to date:
Registering for Social Security benefits and how to self-administer a COVID-19 Antigen Test Kit (ATK) have been the most popular topics among workers. Some of them had registered for social security but did not fully understand the benefits or why they needed to pay every month. In addition, the ATK was popular subject as they wanted to know how to use the free tests provided by the government to better protect themselves.
Cashless payments and using QR code payments were also important topics and most informal workers quickly adapted to using their mobile phones for this use, applying the knowledge right after the training.
Google Maps was an exciting tool the workers learned during their training. New for most informal workers, they learned how to post photos of their business and communities to let customers find and visit their shops without any marketing cost.
Google Translate was another very helpful tool. Souvenir vendors were trained to use this to explain the meaning of their products in many languages. Massage workers at Wat Pho Temple, the first Thai medical massage school, used the tool to help explain Thai massage and its health benefits to tourists.
Another very important topic was Child Safety and ensuring that informal workers understood the Thai law and how everyone in a community can protect children.
Unfortunately not every sector was easy to connect with. Nightlife workers and bar owners are the most difficult people to engage and change their mindsets. However, the work continues and more success will come as we learn how to better engage with all workers.
To date approximately 450 informal workers from a wide range of sectors have participated in the trainings. Overall feedback has been incredibly enthusiastic and perhaps none more surprising that the 50 Tuk Tuk drivers that actively engaged and were particularly committed to Child Safe practices. As we continue with the project, we will post more updates and hope these examples can lead to similar projects taking place in other destinations.
