Success factors of learning organization for community-based tourism management in Doi Inthanon national park, Thailand

Abstract

Community-based tourism (CBT) in national parks has been recognized by its increasing popularity but an issue also emerged regarding the aspect of learning organization to enhance management capacity to work with the park authority to meet sustainable tourism goals with mutual understanding of tourism standards and regulation. This research aimed to identify success factors of learning organization, evaluate three community-based tourism groups: Mae Klang Luang, Pa Mon, and Nong Lom located in Doi Inthanon National Parks based on those factors, and suggest an improvement of CBT based on the research results. Qualitative method was employed. Success factors were identified by literature reviews, followed by expert evaluation using Delphi technique. The results revealed 4 elements and 33 key success factors for community-based tourism learning organization (CBT-LO). The elements comprised of leader and members in organization, organization learning culture,
communication, and knowledge management. The self-evaluations of CBT-LO performance based on the key success factors were carried out in focus group discussions. Each factor was discussed and a score was given. The weighting score method was used to calculate the overall CBT-LO performance for each CBT group. The evaluation results showed the organization leader and members and communication were their strengths while knowledge management was their weakness. Pa Mon was the best performance on CBT-LO while Mae Klang Luang and Nong Lom were ranked second and third, respectively. Action plans on improvement of CBT-LO were suggested.