Guidelines for participatory community management to accommodate tourists from the elderly in Ratchaburi Province

Abstract

The purposes of this research were 1) to study the potential and context of community-based tourism management in Ratchaburi province. 2) to study the factors affecting the satisfaction and repurchase behavior of elderly tourists towards community-based tourism in Ratchaburi province, and 3) to propose a participatory community management approach to accommodate elderly tourists of community tourist attractions in Ratchaburi province. It’s a mixed methods research, collecting data by questionnaire from a sample group of 400 elderly people traveling in community tourist attractions in Ratchaburi province and in-depth interviews from 20 stakeholders in community-based tourism management  by using content analysis and statistical analysis to analyze data including frequency, percentage, mean, t-test, One-Way ANOVA and hypothesis testing  through stepwise multiple regression analysis.

The findings are as follows: 1) Ratchaburi province's community tourists are  attracted by a variety of tourism resources including accessibility, facilities and services suitable for the elderly. 2) Factors affecting satisfaction and repurchasing behavior of elderly tourists toward community tourist attractions in Ratchaburi province are Community-Based Tourism management, Ancillary Service, Attraction and Amentities. 3) The guidelines for participatory community management to accommodating elderly tourists in community-based tourism in Ratchaburi province consist of the following :  the community should draw the charm of simplicity and traditional as a selling point, the working group structure should be established with an emphasis on participatory processes, the potential of community-based tourism personnel should be developed and working with government networks to promote tourism, marketing and public relations.