The Development of Cultural Tourism Database for Community Tourism Promotion in Wawee Sub-district, Mae Suai District, Chiang Rai Province

Abstract

This qualitative research aimed to develop the cultural tourism database for Wawee Community in Mae Suai District, Chiang Rai Province. In order to collect data, the purposive sampling technique was used to select thirty community authorities who were interviewed for actual and authentic data on community tourism. The semi-structured interviews included three community leaders: a village headman, a tribe leader, and a chairman, from each of ten potentially capable villages. Interviewing topics covered community contexts in four aspects: language, the way of life, traditional conservation, and religion and belief. A set of questionnaire was also used to collect quantitative data, concerning general community contexts, from ten Wawee Sub-district Administrative Organization Officers. Consequently, the quantitative data was analyzed by frequency and percentage, while the SWOT analysis and the 5As theory were used to determine the potential tourism infrastructure. Moreover, the qualitative data was interpreted by the content analysis method.

The results revealed that Wawee Sub-district was considered high capability and potentiality for cultural tourism development, especially the distinctive varieties of language, ways of life, tradition/ belief, and religion. The dominance also included the magnificent landscape for holding community festivities. However, the area was rarely promoted. Information of the research would be beneficial for the database as well as the cultural tourism promotion such as cultural tourism calendar, brochure, and electronic reference for its further cultural conservation and tourism development which would be tourist attractive area in the future.