Success factors of religious and cultural tourism management : a case study of Hirunyavath temple, Koh Chang sub-district, Mae Sai district, Chiang Rai Province
Abstract:
The objectives of this study were: (1) to examine levels of factors affecting success in religious and cultural tourism management of Wat Hirunyavath, Koh Chang subdistrict, Mae Sai district, Chiang Rai province, (2) to examine factors influencing success in religious and cultural tourism management of Wat Hirunyavath; and (3) to propose guidelines developing religious and cultural tourism management model for the temple and communities within the area of Wat Hirunyavath.
The samples in this study were 210 participants including 100 villagers, 100 tourists visiting Wat Hirunyavath, 10 community leaders from Ban Muengdaengnoi Moo 8, Koh Chang subdistrict, Mae Sai district, Chiang Rai province. The research instruments were questionnaires for tourists and villagers, and in-depth interview for community leaders. The data was analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and content analysis.
The findings showed that regarding the tourists (1) their traveling behaviors were family traveling using personal car; their traveling purpose was travel and leisure; the majority used to visit Wat Hirunyavath; traveling duration was a day trip; they received traveling information from the media/friends/relatives; their traveling expense was less than 1,000 Baht; their traveling intention was to follow religious and cultural tourism routes. (2) Opinion toward potential in religious and cultural tourism management of Wat Hirunyavath in regard to 5 aspects including physical characteristics, environmental quality maintenance, socio-economic, arts and culture, and management, in overall, was found at the high level. Regarding villagers, (1) Opinion toward factors developing potential in religious and cultural tourism management of Wat Hirunyavath in regard to 3 aspects including potential in tourism magnet, potential in tourism caring capacity, and potential in management, in overall, was rated at the high level. (2) People's participation in religious and cultural tourism management of Wat Hirunyavath, in overall, was found at the high level. The important activities were people paid closed attention on following news about development of religious and cultural tourism attraction of Wat Hirunyavath from various types of media. (3) Problems and obstacles in tourism management of Wat Hirunyavath involved 3 issues. Regarding planning participation circumstance, in overall, people were involved in appointing operation committee, while regarding problem about people in the community, in overall, people lacked knowledge and understanding about development of religious and cultural tourism site. For problem involving staff in the temple, in overall, there was the lack in information dissemination on issues impacting people in the community, environment, and unsupportive and uncooperative feeling of people in the community on assembly or public networking to participate in developing the temple. Regarding interview results with community leaders, (1) Potential of temple/village/community and religious and cultural tourism management of the temple on 3 aspects including potential in religious and cultural tourism motivation, the findings showed that the temple possessed outstanding arts and cultural identity as Wat Hirunyavath housed the biggest bamboo Buddha image entitled "Winning Mara Bamboo Buddha". The temple also organized the activities continuously and allowed participation of people in the community. (2) Potential in religious and cultural tourism caring capacity, regarding the temple possessing basic convenient facilities, the interviewee held different opinion on this issue. About support from community and government, the community provided good support to the temple but there was still limited support from government. (3) Potential in tourism management, regarding the temple's environment maintenance, the interviewee placed an emphasis on making understanding and raising awareness to the tourists about the value of the religious and cultural tourism site. Also, the staff overseeing the temple was sufficient against the number of the tourists. Regarding socio-economic management, (2) there were 2 issues about constructing the model developing religious and cultural tourism of Wat Hirunyavath. That is, people-based developing model as people expressed variety of opinion but the important one was the temple should serve as religious and cultural center of the community, subdistrict, district, and province. The government should train people in the community regarding skills in producing OTOP products in order to generate income and construct community identity. The temple should use online public relations activities using various types of internet channels in order to advertise the temples to the tourists. Regarding development staff of the temple, there should be training for the staff about history of the temple so that they could share this knowledge to the tourists. The temple staff should have the chance to visit the prototype religious and cultural tourism site so that they could use this knowledge to develop this temple. Regarding hypothesis testing, the findings agreed with the set hypothesis in that tourism attracting factors showed high degree of effect toward the success of religious and cultural tourism management of Wat Hirunyavath, Koh Chang subdistrict, Mae Sai district, Chiang Rai province.