PERFORMANCE OF THE OTOP NAWATWITHI TOURISM COMMUNITY PROJECT, MAHASARAKHAM PROVINCE

Abstract

OTOP Nawatwithi Community Tourism Project, which has operated in every province except Bangkok, is a project that the Department of Community Development has operated in communities throughout the country since 2018. There are 3,273 villages participating in the project. To date, there has been no systematic evaluation of the impact of this project. Therefore, there is a question of whether the project can achieve the objective of increasing the number of tourists and, thus, the income of the people.

To answer this question, the researchers conducted an evaluation in 41 communities in Mahasarakham Province. The researchers visited all communities and examined whether they had the necessary computer equipment for the project. At the same time, representatives of each community were interviewed. The data showed that at the end of the fiscal year 2019, after the project has been in operation for two year, the number of tourists who had visited the communities increased from 3,240 the prior year to 19,798. On average, the aggregated income of the four types of business operators -- OTOP product vendors, food vendors, lodging owners, and tour services -- increased from just over 13 million baht to slightly over 22 million baht, an average of approximately 537,000 baht per community per annum.