Logistics Management Guidelines for Tourism, Surat Thani Province

Abstract

This study aimed to 1) study the context of tourism logistics in Surat Thani province, and 2) propose guidelines for tourism logistic management in Surat Thani province. The qualitative was employed, the qualitative data were 69 respondents who are locals, community leaders, government officers, and tourism agencies were under a purposive sampling and snowball sampling techniques, research instrument was a semi-structured interview form, content validity by 3 experts in tourism and logistics, collected by using in-depth interview and focus group discussion and analyzed with content analysis method. The results revealed that the contexts of tourism logistic in Surat Thani province in the physical flow was high but there were problems in transportation and public transport management. Many tourist attractions could not be reached because of lacking the public transport. There is no standard for service charge pricing. Some basic infrastructures were not satisfied, for example, parking lots are not well organized, toilets are inadequate and damaged, bins are not enough. Referring to information flow, it was high but it found that there are problems with information signs in tourist attractions. For examples, there were no tourist direction signs, tourist information boards and rules and regulations board for tourist attractions. According to financial flow, the result was high most tourist attractions offer online payment or QR code payment service, some shops at the tourist attraction receive only cash. The guidelines for tourism logistic management in Surat Thani province showed that the physical flow should 1) provide the standard public transportation in order to serve the tourism and access to the tourist attractions easily, 2) improve the quality of transportation system to meet the standards of service, 3) allocate adequate toilet with good condition, and 4) provide enough separate waste bins. The guidelines for information flow reveals that there are requirement for developing and improving information signs including clear direction signs in both Thai and foreign languages, tourist information QR code for scanning tourist attraction information, rules and regulations board for tourist attractions. For financial flow, it requires to increase payment channels to serve cashless society.