Proposed Guidelines for Promoting Community Learning to Develop Creative Tourism

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to study the characteristics, to analyze the learning situation, and to present the community learning guidelines for developing creative tourism. Research design was mix methodology. Samples were 570 people from 57 creative tourism communities/sites of Thailand. Research tools were questionnaires and case study. Four communities were selected as case studies using Snowball interview, observation and expert interview.

Research findings were as follows: 1) characteristics as the creative tourism communities consisted of 3 components which were sustainability, learning and participation in arts, culture, ways of life, wisdom, and characteristics/identity, and relationships between tourists and hosts; 2) the learning situation of communities where perform creative tourism was found that 2.1) knowledge related to build the confidence and realize the value of community ownership are rated as the most important (M = 4.37), 2.2) learning method which communities regard as the most important is the experience gained from learning by doing (M = 4.16) and 2.3) the most significant resources were local wisdom instructors (M = 4.37); 3) Guideline of the community learning support for developing the creative tourism could be setting up the systematic tourist committee/working team by the local communities, co-planning, income providing, team-working, duty responsibilities, all working in systems, often regular meeting.