A STUDY OF CHINESE APPLICATION FOR THAI TEMPLE TOURISM: CASE STUDY AS TRIMITR WITTAYARAM TEMPLE

Abstract

At the present, tourism is globally growing; Buddhist temple tourism has been included in tourism development plans of many Southeast Asian countries. Thailand has abundant of unique Buddhist temple culture. As a result, this country becomes one of the favorite destinations for tourists, especially Chinese travelers. In recent years, a number of Chinese travelers are increasing and become more crucial for Thai tourism. Because Trimitr wittayaram temple Bangkok is one of the most favorite travel destination among Chinese travelers, this temple has established two historical museum, which are Golden Buddha historical museum and Bangkok China town historical museum. Moreover, this temple established volunteered foreign language tour guide project to facilitate foreign travelers.  

Wat Trimitr Wittayaram temple is selected as a case study of this thesis. The content analysis, survey and participation are applied to analyze reasons and factors making this temple become a one of the famous destination for Thailand tourism, as well as deeply focus on Chinese language services in the temple including tourist attraction and in-house tour guide services, evaluate Chinese language usage in services, summarize problems and propose solutions. 

The findings indicated that, Chinese language services in in this Thai temple are unable to respond Chinese tourists’ need. Thai temple tourism still lacks of personnel who have knowledge of Chinese language in Buddhist temple tourism services. Chinese language services of Thai temple need to be improved continuously. Moreover, related authorities should improve Chinese language services of facilities and develop Chinese language training course for tour guides and personnel, in order to enhance quality of Thai temple tourism service in the long run.