African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure (May 2018)
The travelling route for gastronomic tourism via salt in western region of Thailand.
Abstract
This research on upgrading the creative tourism route of Thailand via local food promotion in especially western Thailand, intentionally focuses on the capabilities of some charming tourist attractions which through local food of the western region, could enhance tourism. It additionally explores tourism information for ‘food learning’ and knowledge acquisition, in the following eight provinces including Nakhon Pathom, Ratchaburi, Kanchanaburi, Suphanburi, Phetchaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Samut Songkhram and Samut Sakhon. This is in order to design and craft a suitable tourism route for potential tourists interested in the notion of ‘food learning’. The research methodology applied consists of qualitative and quantitative aspects. The qualitative aspect analyzes local food secondary data and also involved interviewing food gurus and lifestyle experts and it included surveying tourist attractions and their potential in representing an areas identity in terms of especially food. It also looked at the food culture, tradition and indigenous knowledge based on the concepts of eco-agricultural tourism, community-based tourism and sustainable tourism. The result of the aforementioned analysis and on-site survey shows that each province has its owndistinctive identity and characteristics that can be deployed as tourist attractions. Furthermore, the identity of food culture in the western region can be divided into 2 groups: 1) a group of coastal provinces - Samut Sakhon, Samut Songkhram, Phechaburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan in which emphasis is on seafood nutrient resources, and 2) a group of inland provinces - Ratchaburi, Kanchanaburi, Suphanburi and Nakhon Pathom which stress nutrient resources gained from rivers, hills and agricultural lands. After grouping each province based on its identity and distinctive characteristics, its tourist attractions are linked to each province’ s existing tourist attractions so as to enable a better design of the tourism route through the avenue of local food promotion. This is then analyzed along with the potential of tourist attractions. After determining the abovementioned tourism routes, a trip plan was created which can be used as a model example for local food learning in each of the three routes. The result was a two-day trip new tourism plan which is suitable for food tourists and learning about culinary aspects of Thailand. It is expected that the commercial potential of these provinces can enhanced through such a new tourism model being applied in the western region. This can be matched with foreign individual tourism (FIT) as well as the tourists preferences for experiencing and learning about local food in a form of “Tour, Taste and Learn”. The data require more work so as to improvement offerings and also to enable the working team in each region office of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to further develop and upgrade the creative tourism route through the use of local food promotion as encouraged in this article.
