Folklore, Culture, Ways of Life: Case Study of OTOP Innovations Tourism Community Potential in 21 Communities, Nakhon Pathom Province

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate: 1) the general context of 21 OTOP inno-life tourism-based communities, 2) local wisdom, culture, lifestyles of 21 communities, and 3) potential for tourism of the 21 communities to strengthen its foundation to support the OTOP products which are unique, wealthy, and stable in terms of general context, wisdom, culture, life, and tourism potential. The qualitative research was designed to gather data through in-depth interviews with 63 interviewing participants and participant observation was conducted. Data were analyzed using content analysis. The results demonstrated as follows: 1) The general context of OTOP Inno-Life tourism-based communities can be divided into three groups: (1) ethnic and wisdom, (2) sufficiency economy, and (3) agricultural enterprises. 2) Wisdom, culture, and lifestyles of such 21 communities differed as follows: (1) For the ethnic and local wisdom group, all of the products are handicrafts, hand-woven silks, potteries, bamboo, and water hyacinth baskets, herbs, and agricultural products processing. (2) Group of sufficiency economy brings in local wisdom, culture, and lifestyles to promote local agriculture as sufficiency economy model, organic agriculture, agricultural product, and food processing. (3) For the group of agricultural enterprises, they spend life simply along with the canal. They are well known as agro-tourism management cruise, traveling by trams to see nature and garden as well as and studying how to process local fruits. 3) The potential for 21 OTOP Inno-Life tourism-based communities was to develop the strength of its foundation to support OTOP products with uniqueness, wealth, stabilities by using five development processes: (1) staff (2) tourist attraction and facilities (3) products and services (4) connection of routes in each area, and (5) local tourism markets. This could be a guideline for driving and supporting the potential for the OTOP community much more wealthy and stable.