Attitudes Toward Cultural Tourism With Community Participation: A Case Of ‘Authentic Songkhla Food Old-Time Atmosphere’ Walking Street in Southern Thailand
Wassana Suwanvijit*
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Thaksin University, Songkhla 90000 Thailand

Abstract: This paper focuses on: (1) measuring attitudes toward cultural tourism with community participation of tourists, in regards to the management of cultural activities, food and beverage products, souvenir products, facility, access, security, image, and environmental; (2) comparing attitudes by the demographic factors of tourists. The Authentic Songkhla Food Old-time Atmosphere’ walking street market in southern Thailand was chosen as a case study. The data was collected by sampling 300 of the tourists participated in the walking street during August to December 2014 using questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, t-test and One-way ANOVA were used to analyse the data. The results revealed that the tourists have positive attitude in all of the components. Though, there were significant difference when compared the attitude between some age group, education level, and income. We found that the older tourists had attitude level on ‘Image’ component less than those younger. The tourists with less income have more attitude level on ‘Image’ component than those who have higher income. The tourists with higher degree of education had attitude level on 'Security' component less than those who have the less degree. So, we gave some suggestions such as: the tourism needs to (1) segment the market and communicate using several medias or activities to increase the attitude in each group; (2) increase the communication or supports activities focus on the older aged and the higher income as new target groups; (3) create awareness about the security focus on the higher degree of education group.

Keywords:Community participation, Cultural tourism, Southern Thailand, Attitudes.