Pai-Profile-Page

Pai founded Local Alike in 2012 with a goal to bring economic opportunities to local communities through responsible and sustainable tourism. Unique and meaningful travel experiences are curated with local communities across Thailand while making sure that 70% of what tourists pay goes back to the host communities, giving a larger share of the money made from the tourism industry back to the locals.   

Before founding Local Alike, Pai was a petrochemical and polymeric engineer graduate from Silpakorn University and worked as a Head Engineer of Production for Kinyosha-Bottcher (KB) Systems before he decided to leave to get an MBA in Sustainable Business Development at Presidio Graduate School in California and then returned to Thailand to work at Mae Fah Luang Foundation under royal patronage where he began working with the hill tribe villagers at Baan Suan Par in Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand, to assist the villagers in developing their homestay businesses. 

In 2012, Pai led his team and won an award from BanPu Champions for Change competition, a competition designed to encourage and support social enterprises to solve social and environmental issues in Thailand. In 2017, Pai also won a grant of 11.4 million Baht (€300,000) from Booking.com Booster 2017 to scale Local Alike business model. Over the past 8 years, Local Alike under Pai’s leadership, has worked with over 200 local communities in Thailand, curated over 574 journeys and generating 2.31 Social ROI to communities (per 1 USD spent).

Pai has been part of Ashoka Fellows since 2016 (Ashoka Foundation – Social Innovation Initiative Thailand), Young Business Leader Initiative, Asian New Zealand Foundation, Young Societal Leaders, Institute for Societal Leadership, Singapore Management University, Innovation Driven Enterprise to Initial Public Offering#4 (56 Hours), Market for Alternative Investment of Thailand (MAI) and National Innovation Agency (Public Organization), Thailand’s Tourism Management Program for Executives (TME), TAT Academy, Top 10 Young Thai Male Entrepreneurs 2019 by RHA Media Sdn. Bhd and the Subcommittee of Agribusiness Driven Unit, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative.

We believe that travellers get the best travel experience by spending times with the locals. At Local Alike, we carefully crafted local routes with local communities to tailor extraordinary, authentic trips.