The Information Development of The Buddha’s Footprint Heritage Tourism-route by the Google API. Case Study: Bua-Bok Buddha’s Footprint in Udon Thani

Abstract

The purpose of this research was: 1) to study of the Buddha’s footprint 2) to study the Buddha’s Footprint Heritage Tourism-route and 3) to develop a web application of the Buddha’s Footprint Heritage Tourism-Route using Google Maps API.

The Buddha’s Footprint in Udon Thani and Nong Khai would be displayed on the web application including the contents and location of the Buddha’s Footprint route and some of the cultural heritage on the web application.  The objective of this study was to create a database and develop a map service for Community Based Tourism using Google maps API in which it was an open source in JavaScript language. Additionally, HTML, JavaScript, XML and PHP were applied to develop a web map interactive media service while MySQL was established to store the database.  The system capabilities include searching and displaying the data with text, images, info graphics, interactive maps, and locating tourism routes.  The website was divided into several modules namely Home, Community Attraction, History and Travel Route of the Buddha’s footprint.

The results of this analysis includes 3 trails for tourism were: 1) from Udon Thani province ® to Ban Phue district ® to the Bua Bok temple 2) from Phra Phutthabat district Nongkhai province ® to Ban Phue district ® to the Bua Bok temple and
3) from Chiang Khan District Loei province ® to Pak Chom District Loei province ® to Na Yoong District Udon Thani province ® to Ban Phue district ® to the Bua Bok temple.  The results of this research reinforce tourist information for local authorities and apply the results to display information on usable cultural attractions.

The research also found that the means of 45 user satisfaction on the system in general and in detailed dimensions were high in descending order as user functional requirement, program functionality, usability, and performance.  The research, therefore, showed that the developed system was in good quality and functionality. The overall score () = 4.27, SD = 0.43 was at a high level.