A Model Management in Sekong Province,Laos PDR.

Abstract

The research aimed to study a model of the tribe cultural tourism management in Sekong Province, Laos PDR. It was conducted in three phrases. The first phrase was to study the conditions of the tribe cultural tourism management in Sekong Province, Laos PDR. The target group, randomized by purposive sampling, consisted of 60 participants cooperating in the tribe cultural tourism management in Sekong Province, Laos PDR. The second phrase aimed to develop the model. The target group, randomized by purposive sampling, combined with 12 participants cooperating in the tribe cultural tourism management. The third phrase focused on the evaluation of the model. The target group, randomized by purposive sampling, included 17 experts who had knowledge and experience in the tribe cultural tourism management. The research instruments were a questionnaire, notes from group discussion, and an evaluation form. The statistics used to analyze data were percentage, mean, standard deviation, and content analysis. 

                  The research findings were as follow.

                  The model of the tribe cultural tourism management in Sekong Province, Laos PDR consisted of four components: principles, objectives, operation, and conditions for success. The first component, the principles, referred to the participation of the participants in the tribe cultural tourism management in conserving resources, marketing and public relation, services and activities, and developing tourism potentiality. The second component, the objectives, was to manage the tribe cultural tourism in Sekong Province, Laos PDR in conserving resources, marketing and public relation, services and activities, and developing tourism potentiality. The third component, the operation, consisted of 1) tourism resource conservation managed by building awareness in the resource conservation, participating in the resource conservation, maintaining environment and resources, conserving local wisdom, remaining the original ways of the tribe lives, realizing in the areas limited, and respecting to the tribe cultures; 2) marketing and public relation managed by operating identity and creative tourism products, regulating appropriate tourism prices, arranging ways to sell the products, promoting marketing, publicizing tourism, and distributing income; 3) services and activities managed by providing comfortable services to reach tourism resources, facilities and public utility systems, tourism safety, homestays, travel information, attractive activities, and identity products; and 4) developing tourism potentiality managed by cooperating tourism, developing complete participation processes, developing tourism by the government sector, developing tourism resources, and developing tourism management budgets. The fourth component, the conditions for success, was that the tribesmen realized the importance of tourism and cooperating in the tourism affairs seriously, the leaders had to dedicate themselves to work for the tourism affairs and were aware in conserving environment and cultures, the tribe tourism needed to be a part of the province improvement plan, and the province and government sectors needed to have policies to promote the tribe tourism, and tourism participants had to gain benefits together. According to the evaluation by the experts, the results showed that the overall of the tribe cultural tourism model of Sekong Province, Laos PDR was appropriate and possible to be used at a high level.