Guidelines for Temple Development of Local Tourism Promotion: A case study of Wat Praduphatthanaram, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to study the potential of Wat Praduphatthanaram, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, to create a model to accommodate tourists according to the potential of each aspect of the temple and to develop temples for community tourism promotion. The population used in the study was 5 monks who resided in the temple and 300 Thai visitors travelling to the temple. The research tools were an unstructured interview form and questionnaires. The data was analyzed using mean, standard deviation and content analysis. The results showed that the potential of the temple was outstanding to promote community tourism consisting of 1) physical potential, i.e. nature of the soil surface, and wind direction; 2) facilities potential included infrastructure, parking, restrooms, food and beverage outlets; 3) resources potential of the temple that attract tourists i.e. the abbot, and ancient monuments 4) the potential of organizing activities of the temples that tourists can participate, i.e. praying every Sunday and the Festival of the Tenth Lunar Month (Sat Duan Sip). The elements that were in the potential for all 4 areas would be the data to create a model to accommodate the tourists. Regarding the study result, the simple formula was found to quantify the improvement of various factors, and could be calculated and used to develop a concrete measure, including 1) WANACH1 N = (SxV)/A Formula 2) WANACH2 N = S/A Formula and 3) WANACH3 Q = N – V Formula.