Coastal Residents’ Perceptions of the Impact of Community-based Tourism

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived impact of community-based tourism among coastal residents of Trang province, in Thailand. The concepts, theories, and previous research were reviewed for questionnaire construction, using a 5-point Likert scale. The content validity of the questionnaire was tested by expert and reliability was tested with the Cronbach alpha. The data collection using face-to-face questionnaire interviews was conducted with a total of 229 coastal residents. The results of this study indicated that coastal residents perceived CBT impacts in two ways: positively and negatively. The positive impacts indicated that coastal residents are likely to support future CBT development, mainly because of several benef its: cultural heritage, economy, and environmental resources. The negative impacts suggested that agencies encourage leaders and group members to study the best practice of CBT and provide training to develop their capacities in the areas of organizational management and conf lict management. Leaders and group members in CBT need to improve CBT management through meetings to discuss and resolve these problems; moreover, they should build relationships with other people in the community by sharing ideas about CBT.