The Collaboration on Tourism Management in Mae Hong Son Province

Abstract

This study has three objectives: (1) to explore the collaboration on tourism management in Mae Hong Son Province concerning components, processes, and types of collaboration, (2) to identify outputs and outcomes of such collaboration, and (3) to find out the relationship between such collaboration and its outputs and outcomes. This study is carried out on the basis of a qualitative and a quantitative approach by collecting data from people involved in tourism business in Mae Hong Son Province: using in-depth interviews of 14 key informants and distributing 400 questionnaires to a sample group composed[2] of relevant administrators or responsible officers in the public sector, and representatives from the private sector and the people sector (non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations). Statistics employed for data analysis are frequency, percent, average or mean, standard deviation and correlative analysis of Pearson.As a result of the study, it is found that (1) all the components of collaboration are rated high ranking in order from top to bottom as follows: collaboration, stakeholders, administrative resources, and information/knowledge; (2) collaboration processes are rated high ranking in order from top to bottom as follows: planning/decision-making, procedure/collaboration method; (3) types of collaboration are rated high ranking in order from top to bottom as follows: cooperation, coordination, collaboration, and network.As a result of hypothesis testing, it is found that the relationship between the collaboration and the tourism management is rated high and in the same direction in all six aspects: components and outputs, components and outcomes, processes and outputs, processes and outcomes, types of collaboration and outputs, and types of collaboration and outcomesIt is suggested that further studies should be employed in three areas: (1) a comparative study of effective collaboration on tourism management among communities,and regions; (2) a study of types of collaboration among local district administrations and community-based tourism networks in order to develop an appropriate model or a prototype for other local district administrative; (3) a study on an extension of the result of this study to Myanmar from Mae Hong Son Province; (4) a study of Royal Initiative Projects in Mae Hong Son Province that will be beneficial to sustainable tourism management.