SEEKING IDEAS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELEPHANT TOURISM DESTINATION IN THAILAND TO CREATE VALUE FOR TOURISM ACTIVITIES
Keywords:
Elephant Tourism, Elephant Tourism Destination, Create Value for Tourism ActivitiesAbstract
Elephant tourism in many countries including Thailand is experiencing a bad image in using elephants for tourism by trying to train and control the elephants to offer entertainment to tourists mainly. As the result, tourists may encounter inappropriate images such as animal cruelty. Elephant tourism destination have always tried to find a solution, especially the cancellation of activities that are seen as animal cruelty such as elephant riding, elephant shows and try to free the elephants live naturally within the tourist attraction, but cannot support tourists who want to travel activities that used to be. Searching ideas for development of elephant tourism destination should study the development of value for tourism activities in order to accommodate all groups of tourists. Especially elephants are wild animals, tourism activities must take to consider the natural behavior of elephants. Until the concept of creating destination fascination is found in 6 dimensions, which can be applied to develop the value in elephant tourism activities and linked to the natural behavior of elephants. which tourism activities should have 1) Mystery, charm, interesting stories of tourist attractions 2) Abundance of resources, diversity of resources that elephants need 3) Attractiveness desired by tourists 4) The uniqueness of the elephants 5) Appropriate fit and compatibility between elephant tourism destination and tourism activities 6) Friendliness of the attraction where tourists can still interact with elephants through tourism activities. This concept will introduce ways to develop the value for existing tourism activities, to be able to accommodate all groups of tourists and for the survival of the elephants.
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