Modern Marketing Communication for Sustainable Tourism in Koh Lad E Tan Community

Abstract

This research is qualitative research which aimed to study travelling behavior of Thai tourists who came to Koh Lad E-Tan community and to formulate a modern marketing communication of the Koh Lad E-Tan community for sustainable tourism development. The key informants were collected from the following 2 groups; the first group consisted of 12 tourists who came to Koh Lad E-Tan community and the second group consisted of 15 interviewees from community leaders, farmers, and entrepreneurs in Koh Lad E-Tan as well as the heads of government agencies that related to Koh Lad E-Tan using purposive sampling. The data was collected by using an in-depth interview and there were semi-structured questions used as a tool of interviewing. The data was decoded analyzed with descriptive statistics. The research's findings showed that 1) most of the tourists’ domicile was in Bangkok and Nakhon Pathom (33.34%). The travelling’s behaviors showed that 32.00 percent of the tourists knew the tourist attractions in Koh Lad E-Tan from online social media. The reason of decision making to visit Koh Lad E-Tan because of the short distance (23.77%) and 91.67 percent of the tourists used personal car. The average cost of traveling to Koh Lad E-Tan is less than 1,000 baht (66.67%). 2) Despite there were many platforms of media used to reach the tourist but a number of views of each media was very little, approximately a hundred, and the content was not kept up to date as well as the video clip is of poor quality. Therefore, to formulate modern marketing community for sustainable tourism of Koh Lad E-Tan, should be active in public relations from every agency’s collaboration, develop the quality, interesting, and easy access media. Moreover, using the word-of-mouth as a viral marketing  to build more trustworthiness because it is a direct experience, and a quick way in marketing communication.