BANGKOK – Thailand will organize its first food truck festival by the lake of the Muang Thong Thani estate in Nonthaburi province on March 7-8.
Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said the World’s Largest Parade of Food Trucks festival would promote gastronomy tourism and encourage tourists to visit localities and spend in the way that would support the economies of communities in a sustainable fashion.
“The government wants to develop Thai street foods in the form of food trucks that are hygienic and friendly to the environment,” he said. The minister expected food-related income would reach 370 billion baht next year and form 10% of tourism-related income.
Thapanee Kiatphaibool, deputy governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, said Thai street foods were attractive to tourists due to their quality and reasonable prices and earlier caused CNN to praise Bangkok as the world’s best source of street foods.
Chanin Wattanapreksa, president of the Food Truck Club, said the festival would gather more than 200 food trucks. There would also be booths of food truck-related products, a food truck parade, an eating competition and services for the people who planned to run food truck business, he said.