Riverside Environment and Community-based Tourism in Ayutthaya

Abstract

Community-based tourism is a form of tourism that must depend on the context, environment, way of life, and living, or the cultural ecology of that community. It is considered an important factor that motivates tourists to visit and experience the environment and way of life of the community through the physical context of the community, including building patterns, houses, temples, pavilions, and piers. It also includes natural resources such as trees, rice fields, rivers, forests, mountains, gardens, and natural environments, demonstrating the form of community and co-existence with the surrounding environment creating a cultural ecosystem.

The purpose of this research is to study and collect ecological environment data. Community way of life and culture through community-based tourism activities that mainly use water resources in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province to show the relationship between tourism and community cultural ecology by identifying the use of important resources of the community. It is done through case studies of riverside tourism communities in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province by a rapid survey to study the factors affecting the riverside community-based tourism model, namely: natural resources factors; a way of life, culture, and products. It found that the infrastructure development factor is another important factor affecting the change of the lifestyle of the riverside community that has been presented through the tourism of the riverside community in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province.