Community Based Tourism Promotion Policy and Tourism Communities Solidarity in Upper Northern Thailand

Abstract

This research aimed 1) to study tourism community solidarity and 2) to study the direct and indirect influences of community tourism promotion policy factors, both of community and household level that affected to tourism community solidarity. The methodology was quantitative research method. The population was the tourism communities in upper northern Thailand totaled 88 communities. To be specify the sample size by G* Power program and purposive sampled to get a sample size at the community level of 56 communities and at the family level of 672 households. The research tools for data collection were questionnaire. The data were analyzed descriptive statistics and Multilevel Equal Model.

The results of the research were found that the result of study households in the tourism communities having solidarity in a medium level. (x ̅= 3.31, S.D. = 0.84) and the dimensions with the high solidarity were the cultural integration and the low solidarity were communication integration. 2) the factors affecting the solidarity of tourism communities found at the household level factors, the variable response of the households towards the tourism community policies and benefits from community tourism management jointly explained the variations of the community solidarity at 40.50% (R2 = 0.405, P<0.05) as the factors having the most direct positive influence was the responses of the households towards the tourism management (β= 0.658, P<0.05). For the factors at the community level, it was found that the factors of the results of community tourism promotion policies, the outside support, and the tourism management within the community jointly explained the variations of the community solidarity at 76.80% (R2 = 0.768, P<0.05) as the factors having the most direct negative influence was the tourism management within the community (β = - 0.502, P<0.05).