Developing a Creative Tourism Route to Promote Elderly Empowerment in Noen Hom Community, Prachinburi Province DOI:

Abstract

This study aimed to develop creative tourism routes and activities that promote active ageing among older adults in Noen Hom community, Prachinburi Province. The research was grounded in the community’s natural resources, ways of life, and rich cultural capital, which include herbal processing, traditional knife forging, angklung craftsmanship, and organic agricultural practices. A Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework was employed to ensure that older adults and community members were actively involved throughout the entire design process from the identification of cultural capital and the         co-creation of activity prototypes to the assessment of the community’s capacity to implement creative tourism.

The research methods comprised three major components. First, cultural and tourism-related resources were systematically documented and categorized, revealing that the community possesses diverse knowledge systems and learning sites with strong potential for tourism development. Second, creative tourism activities were collaboratively designed with older adults, local leaders, and community enterprises. Six activities aligned with local capabilities were selected: herbal crispy-roll making, agarwood perfume production, herbal soap crafting, bamboo-shoot dessert making, herbal compress preparation, and mushroom cultivation. These activities were integrated into a structured creative tourism route titled “Learning and Living Well in Noen Hom,” in which older adults played central roles as facilitators, cultural interpreters, and experiential-learning leaders. The third component involved assessing the community’s potential using feedback from 45 volunteer tourists. The findings indicated that the overall potential of the community was rated at a high level (  = 4.18, S.D. = 0.66). The highest-rated dimension was the design of activities derived from local cultural capital (   = 4.52, S.D. = 0.72), followed by older adults’ participation in tourism activity management (   = 4.35, S.D. = 0.42) and the involvement of local masters, cultural practitioners, and artisans as storytellers and interpreters (  = 4.35, S.D. = 0.74).

The results demonstrate that integrating cultural capital with the principles of active ageing enhances the physical and psychological well-being of older adults, reduces dependency, generates supplementary income, and creates social value through pride in local wisdom. In terms of contribution, this research proposes a community-driven model of creative tourism development that positions older adults as active contributors rather than passive recipients. The model provides a practical framework for rural communities seeking to establish culturally grounded creative tourism and serves as a mechanism for strengthening local economies and promoting a healthy, sustainable ageing society.