Demand for community participation in managing water tourism around Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya city

Abstract

          This study investigated and compared the communities’ demands for participating in managing water tourism around the city of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya. The sample of the study was 196 local residents residing around riverbanks within a radius of two kilometers. The rivers included the Pasak River, the Lopburi River (or Mueang Canal), and the Chao Phraya River. The research instrument used to gathering the data was questionnaires. The data were analyzed by using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, independent samples t test, one-way ANOVA and Welch test. The research findings were presented as follows: 1) The overall data and the individual data suggested that the residents residing around riverbanks of the city island expressed their demand for participation in the managing water tourism at a high level, i.e., the demand for sharing the benefits together, the demand for participating in the monitoring process, the demand for participating in the work, and the demand for partaking in planning respectively, and 2) Overall the residents having different frame of references: location of the community, gender, age, marital status, religion, level of education, occupation, and average income per month, found to show the demands for participation in managing the water tourism of the city island, which was not significantly different at 0.01 level statistically.