Tourism planning and destination marketing : towards a community-driven approach : a case of Thailand

Abstract

This thesis argues that while analysing markets and developing strategies to exploit the external market place and to attract tourists remains a central focus for tourism marketers, it is not enough on its own to achieve sustainable tourism destination development. The researcher substantiates this argument by exploring the 'participatory tourism planning' concept in detail. Based on this approach, the community is identified as a primary customer for whom tourism marketers have ignored involving in their marketing attention, messages and programmes. The fundamental concept - marketing orientation and customer orientation - combined with emerging marketing theories were reviewed in order to help examine how destination marketing, a community-driven approach, should be implemented within a destination area. This examination of marketing and community based tourism planning set a platform for this research. This analysis examines relevance, applicability and potential for an integration of these two pervasive approaches for tourism planning. Guided by the theoretical examination, an integrated community-based tourism planning and marketing model was proposed. In order to explore gaps between the proposed model and its practicality, three destination areas (Phuket, Samui and Songkla-Hatyai) in Thailand were studied and evaluated. At this pragmatic level, this thesis identified impediments confronting national and local tourism organisations. The findings of this study draw a particular attention to institutional challenges which require clear identification of responsibilities and coordination of all actors involved in the planning and marketing process. These selected case studies have not only provided critical commentaries to assist tourism planners improve strategically their marketing approaches within community tourism planning, but they also have helped provide avenues for future research.