Development of the Tourism Areas Potential to Solve Problems on Encroachment of Historical Sites in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to 1) study contexts of historical tourism sites in Ayuttaya province, and 2) establish guidelines for developing the potential of tourism areas for solving the encroachment of historial sites in Ayuttaya province. The qualitative research methodology was utilized for an in-depth interview, semi-structured interview, content analysis, and questionnaires for gathering the data through purposive sampling with 21 participants who were government officers, private officers, and stakeholders. In addition, the qualitative research was also employed through the accidental sampling of 400 Thai and foreign tourists visiting Ayutthaya historical sites. The data were analyzed by descriptive analysis, mean, percentage, and standard deviation.  After having been studying three historical sites, the results showed that 1) the outstanding features of Ayutthaya world heritage represent the prosperity, the sources of national arts and cultures, and the ancient sites disclosed the civilization in the past, 2) according to the issues of historical sites reservation, those areas became the communities and growing tourism business center which triggers to degeneration and invasion of the historical sites, and 3) referring to the important current issues in the historical sites, there were four factors to be concerned; areas, basic elements towards tourism, knowledge construction, and economy and safety. These results can be deployed to establish the guidelines to enhance the potentials of tourism areas in order to solve the problem of the historical site invasion in Ayutthaya province with the four aspects as follows : The enhancement of developing the academic sources for tourism, the renovation of historical sites, and the encouragement of community participation for tourism were at the very high level (“x̅ ”  = 4.37, 4.35, 4.25 respectively), and the development of public utility system was at the high level (“x̅”  = 4.19).