Survey of Local Wisdom Heritage and Evaluation of Participatory Tourism Potential of Non Tun Community, Nong Bua Lamphu.

Abstract

The purposes to: study community history, survey of local wisdom and evaluate tourism potential of local wisdom heritage of Non Tun Community, Nong Bua Lamphu. This research is a mixed methodology research. The in-depth interview, participant observation and focus group were applied for compiling qualitative data. Moreover, the participant survey was used for gathering quantitative from key informants including 35 cases of community leaders and members.  The survey topics were local wisdom heritage survey and evaluation of local wisdom heritage potential. The frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used for descriptive statistics analysis. The content analysis was employed for qualitative data after conducting analysis data triangulation. The concepts of community tourism potential, local wisdom heritage, tourism potential, cultural heritage tourism and participant community analysis were applied.     

          The findings proved that Non Tun community wisdom heritage has been inherited from ancestors, self-invention and existing local wisdom combined with forest living. It can be divided into six aspects; (1) arts; (2) rituals, traditions and beliefs; (3) agriculture (4) nutrition and local food; (5) handicraft; and (6) traditional medicine. The tourism potential of local wisdom heritage was at the highest level. ( = 4.40, S.D. = 0.48) and the culture and art had the most value. ( = 4.70, S.D. = 0.49) Moreover, evaluation results of each item found that tourism potential of handicraft wisdom heritage was at the highest level ( = 4.95, S.D. = 0.31); followed by rituals, traditions and beliefs at the highest level ( = 4.65, S.D. = 0.64); arts at the highest level ( = 4.48, S.D. = 0.82); nutrition and local food at the highest level ( = 4.41, S.D. = 0.83); agriculture at high level ( = 3.74, S.D. = 0.69); and traditional medicine at high level ( = 3.68, S.D. = 0.47), respectively.