Exploration Travel’s Edwin Briels Explains the Magic Behind “Unstaged” Tourism in Thailand

Edwin Briels is a Mekong tourism veteran, and he’s seen it all. A long-time resident of Yangon in Myanmar, he ran Khiri Travel’s operations in the country before striking out on his own and setting up Exploration Travel, which now curates “unstaged” travel experiences in Myanmar and Thailand.

Exploration Travel’s most popular adventures blaze trails through Thailand’s secondary destinations – a point of pride for Edwin, who believes that practicing sustainability should focus on equitable distribution of tourism revenue to far-flung communities.

“There’s a lot of under-tourism in Thailand’s secondary destinations, and that’s what we want to attack,” he told us.

We talked to Edwin about his mission in the Mekong’s secondary countries, the “storytellers” he connects to his tourists, the drawbacks of “algorithm tourism”, and the most underrated places in Thailand which he feels deserves a brighter spotlight.

You were previously working in Myanmar, but you’ve shifted to Thailand by setting up Exploration Travel. How is business going so far? 

Exploration Travel opened one and a half year ago in Thailand. And that’s going very well, actually. We focus on secondary destinations, and try to show the real Thailand. Not touristy Thailand, just Thailand as it is, because it is beautiful as it is.

I just came back from Bali, where I met a lot of agents that we had from Myanmar and that now continue to work with us in Thailand. One said he had given up on Thailand, till he found Exploration Travel – he said, “it’s so difficult to find agents doing new things.”

I’m very happy that MTCO member countries are focusing on these secondary destinations. Because when you look at sustainability, I think this is the main thing that has to change.

You can’t have all tourists going to one place at the same time. It’s not healthy for the environment. It’s also not fair in terms of income distribution. If all the tourism income only goes to a few places, then the rest of the country gets nothing.

Could you give me an idea of the different destinations that Exploration Travel focuses on?

One of the places we’re focusing on is Kaeng Krachan National Park, which is the biggest national park in Thailand. It has a lot of wildlife; it’s beautiful. It’s not very developed in terms of tourism. And we work there together; we send a lot of clients to I Love Phants Lodge nearby, which was launched by the Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand

Another place that we do a lot is Phanom Rung near the Cambodia border; and Chanthaburi, which I think has the best example of community-based tourism in the world. They just set up a company with over 100 shareholders, all families on the same street, to develop their own street and their their neighborhood.

In Chanthaburi, we do tropical food tasting, because Chanthaburi is famous for its food. We want tourists to eat a durian right in a Chanthaburi durian plantation.

We also do a lot of things in Tak and Mae Hong Son. We have a new trip called “Burma Border Land”, which is literally going along the Burmese border to focus on all the influences there, like the Kayin and the Tai Yai people living in Thailand.

I think the magic of Thailand is that it has so many influences from different countries, from Cambodia and the Khmer and Isaan. It has influences from Laos, and also from Myanmar. I think we should celebrate that in Thailand tourism – show the diversity of the country along with the diversity of the food.

The tour makes a stop with different storytellers, people who live in their own village. These are people from different backgrounds, who tell something about their life. They could be a teacher, a ranger, a boat owner, anybody.

Then we have Sukhothai. I think Sukhothai is beautiful. It’s amazing that we call it a “secondary destination” because it should be the top destination in the country! But it doesn’t get so many tourists who stay there for one or two nights like most of our tours.

When we come up with new tours, we also have to make sure there’s enough tourists going there to make it sustainable. I see there’s a lot of under-tourism in Thailand’s secondary destinations, and that’s what we want to attack.

The marketing material for Exploration Travel uses the word “unstaged”. How do you ensure this term translates into the actual travel experience?

It’s exactly like what we mean: it is showing Thailand as it is, and not have a show for tourists that showcases the Thai culture.

We do see that a lot elsewhere in the business – of course, it’s easier to do a staged experience because you can tell the clients exactly what they can expect to see.

But I think what you will miss is the sparkle, the goosebumps.

So when we talk about unstaged tourism, we go to different places, and we also meet with people who have not been trained in tourism, who just tell their story about their daily lives.

Could you give me a concrete example of the kind of unstaged tourism that highlights the Exploration Travel experience best?

When we drive from Sukhothai to Nan, for example, we go overland and we stop in a national park where we go trekking with a ranger.

We visit a national park that gets less than ten visitors a week. In Thailand, only a few national parks get all the tourists. And the majority of the national parks get hardly anything, which is a shame.

The trekking takes between 45 minutes up to three hours, and stops for lunch at a certain point. We eat the same food the local ranger is eating – not chicken cashew, not sweet and sour pork, but real Thai food.

The ranger will tell us about his job. Thailand’s national parks are very well organized, actually, and you have very dedicated people who love their job. We want to hear stories from these rangers, with the guide translating.

After that, we continue to a small village where which is famous in that area for brewing the local liquor. And they’ve been experimenting also with different kinds of liquor, like rum or even a kind of champagne. We’ll stop and meet with these owners, go around in their factory and see how it works, even enjoy a tasting.

I think these are a good examples for clients – it’s fantastic because it’s not just a transfer. It’s an experience.

You’ve mentioned Chanthaburi as a wonderful example of community based tourism – why do you think so?

For me, Chanthaburi is the best example of community-based tourism because a big group of people from that community set up a company together in an effort to preserve their heritage.

They literally bought the ruins of an old building which I think was sold for $1 or something, and they managed to renovate this into a museum and a heritage hotel.  Now the whole street, the whole neighborhood is lively again. People are proud about their culture. And it’s more popular now with Thai tourists than Western tourists.

It’s on the way between Phanom Rung and Ko Kut, where we do a lot of things. so I think it’s perfect to add it in into a program. While people are flying from one place to the other place, we want people to travel overland.

One of the downsides, I feel, of a lot of these secondary destinations is they are not conveniently located near Bangkok. They’re a bit difficult to get to. Is that is that something you need to consider when you’re promoting these destinations?

We try to ensure that our destinations are a little bit reachable. But at the same time, it’s a lot about educating clients. There’s always travel agents who say, “My clients don’t want to sit in the car for five hours.” But if you fly from A to B, any domestic flight in the whole world also takes five hours door to door!

So in that sense, it’s more sustainable to go overland instead of flying. And it’s probably more convenient because you just put your luggage in the car, off you go! And you can stop wherever you want.

So it’s about educating tourists that the distances aren’t that far. And the roads in Thailand are fantastic. These are good roads!

But we considered it a little bit. We found a way to show Isaan without feeling that you’re on the road for four days. We do it by breaking up the journey, taking part of it by train and part by road.

Are there sustainable practices that Exploration Travel consciously imposes or practices, with the destinations you cover?

I think our main sustainability-related goal is spreading tourism by going to secondary destinations. It’s more than just plastic bottles. And it’s not about doing one thing as a sustainable excursion. No, it’s about doing everything sustainably.

Avoiding flights is one thing, but we particularly focus on making sure that tourism income goes to people in local areas. Even if they’re not working in tourism, even if they’re not trained in tourism.

For example, we do a lot of home-cooked lunches. We select farmers in a certain area, and we just ask them, “Can we visit with our clients? Can they just come and have dinner at your place? Just cook exactly the same food as you normally make for dinner.”

You help farmers earn more profit, without investing in anything new. Just do it as people do on a day-to-day basis. Without investing in anything, they can earn revenue by providing a meal. And for the clients, it’s a fantastic experience because they see how people live.

And in this experience, there’s always like a lot of different dishes on the table. I don’t mind if my clients don’t like all the dishes. Actually, I hope they don’t like all the dishes! I hope they discover a different taste that they’ve never had, because that’s what gives them memories that they can share back home.

You mentioned that your business in Thailand is doing exceptionally well. What’s your outlook on tourism in Thailand since the pandemic receded?

What I see after the pandemic – you see it in Thailand, but it also happens elsewhere – is something that I call “algorithm tourism”. Everybody goes to the same place because when they plan their trip to Thailand, they go to Google. They search “what should I visit in Thailand?” And it only shows the same places.

Everybody goes to the biggest temple in Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai, and nobody goes to these other temples on Doi Suthep. And because the numbers are so big in Thailand, a place like Doi Suthep gets probably about 10,000 tourists a day.

And if you’re there with 10,000 tourists, if the tourists outnumber local people, then you can hardly talk about an authentic experience! You can’t get the real magical feeling or the sereneness of going to a temple. So I would urge tourists, if you’re not a Buddhist pilgrim, there is no need to go to the most important temple in the area.

Go to the second most important, or the third most important, because there you actually get a chance to get a better feeling of Buddhism. And your guide can actually explain better about Buddhism.

There an opportunity for DMCs to tell tourists, “If you want to see the real thing, if you don’t want to do mass tourism, then you go to a travel agent on the ground and they can say ‘this is what we can do differently.’”

Are there other things that you wish tourists would do more of? What advice would you give them to actually try more of the off-the-beaten-path destinations that Exploration Travel specializes in?

It depends on whether you go as a tourist or as a traveler. If you go as a tourist, and if you just go there for yourself or just to enjoy a resort or whatever, Thailand has a lot of good places. so just go for that hotel and take care of yourself.

If you go as a traveler, if you want to get to know the country, if you want to do something different than what you’re doing at your home country, then go with a travel agency. Talk with guides. Make a trip with the guides, because that makes a big difference. And then dare to go to a place which is not ranked on TripAdvisor or on the top ten of Google.

Trust your travel advice, and then say “okay, let’s go for something different.”

For more itineraries through Thailand and Myanmar, visit Exploration Travel’s official website.