Development of Multimedia to Enhance Competitiveness and Promote Community Tourism in the Hill Zone of Surat Thani Province

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to collect natural attractions and cultural aspects, develop multimedia for promoting and public natural and cultural tourism, and assess the satisfaction of tourists with multimedia used to promote nature tourism and cultural aspects of communities in the hill zone of Surat Thani Province. This research used a quantitative and qualitative research. The research tool used infographic-animations, videos, and questionnaire to ask opinions from the tourists who stayed in Surat Thani and other provinces. The research found that there were tourist attractions in the mountain zone of Surat Thani Province that cover an area of 3 districts, namely Khiriratnikhom District, Bantakhun District and Phanom District, and comprised 28 natural attractions and 9 cultural attractions. The tourist attractions information has been designed and developed into 2 multimedia formats which were infographic animations for promoting natural attractions which is about 6.43 minutes long, and a 10.16-minute video for promoting cultural attractions. The multimedia were taken to assess the satisfaction from 400 tourists and people who were interested in tourism. The satisfaction with infographic animations was very satisfying at the level of =4.35, and a standard deviation of 0.65(SD=0.65). Their satisfaction with the videos also showed the high level of satisfaction with the mean of 4.40 (=4.40), and a standard deviation of 0.65 (SD = 0.65). It was additionally found that the level of interest in tourism among tourists before and after viewing the infographics animations and videos was significantly different.