Development of Spiritual Tourism Routes Linking Thai Beliefs to Promote Soft Power of Singburi Province

Abstract

This article aimed to develop a spiritual tourism route connecting Thai beliefs to promote soft power in Singburi Province. The research employed a mixed-methods approach that included qualitative research. The researcher conducted qualitative data analysis through semi-structured interviews with 10 key informants who either worked at popular spiritual tourist attractions in Singburi Province or had direct experience with these attractions for over 5 years, using a specific selection method to ensure the sample group met the research criteria. Quantitative research was conducted using questionnaires to collect data from a sample of 400 Thai tourists. This analysis aimed to determine the significance of variables related to spiritual tourism in Singburi Province by employing the Pearson Correlation method, which assesses the relationship between beliefs in the demand for spiritual tourism and relevant spiritual tourism routes that promote soft power in Singburi Province.

It was found that there were 4 spiritual tourism routes to promote soft power in Singburi Province and bring the tourism route to test the hypothesis in terms of beliefs in the demand for spiritual tourism in Singburi Province with the spiritual tourism route in Singburi Province, found that the beliefs in the needs of spiritual tourism and the spiritual tourism routes in Singburi Province had a statistically significant positive relationship at the 0.01 level with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.637, the relationship was at a moderate level, namely: If the belief in the demand for spiritual tourism was high, it will cause to more demand for spiritual tourism routes in Singburi Province.

Knowledge from this research was as follows: 1) the more spiritual beliefs and needs tourists had, the more likely they were to choose travel routes that were consistent with their beliefs; 2) the diversity of spiritual motivations affected the choice of tourist routes; 3) spiritual tourism was a form of value tourism; and 4) spiritual tourism routes should be designed according to “belief groups” or “motivation groups.”