The Development of Gastronomy Tourism Manpower to Support the Gastronomy Tourism Village in Secondary Cities of Active Beach

Abstract

The objectives of this research were (1) to develop manpower training courses to support the gastronomy tourism village, and (2) to organize the training courses to develop crew in the community to support gastronomy tourism village in secondary cities tourism development zones in eastern area (Rayong - Chanthaburi - Trat). This research was designed as the participatory action research by developing 3 courses with the community and tourism operators through in-depth interview, focus group and questionnaire. The 3 courses comprise : sanitation and food entrepreneur course, local cooking course and local youth tourist guide/local tourism personnel course. It was found that manpower training courses are able to enhance skills and careers in gastronomy tourism village in order to be well-known among tourists. It is also the new subjects with the expectation after the training, the villagers will discover the guidelines to promote Community Based Tourism that can be applied to truly generate income to the community. The participants in all three courses had the highest average level of satisfaction with the knowledge, utilization, and training period including services, facilitations and speaker. The participants realized that they will be able to transfer the knowledge gained to the local people in the community.