The Challenge in ASEAN Community and Conservation and Heritage Tourism in Social Context Thailand

Abstract

Regarding the challenge in ASEAN community opening to conservation and culture tourism in the Thai social context under the circumstances of ongoing change in the country, Thailand has found several challenging issues or impacts on the country development such as labor mobility, social and cultural adaptation, tourism development and others. The only issue, however, on which will be focused is tourism as it has brought about the huge amount of income to the nation. The income gained, nevertheless, is not thoroughly distributed to the local tourist attractions except the businesspeople or the free market capitalism to which most tourist destinations belong. As the Thai tourism makes its progress, it is a great opportunity in promoting the conservation and culture tourism from the local communities in order to allow an equal share of the income. In so doing, co-operations from different organizations are needed for collecting the problem issues, solutions or factors affecting the amount of the tourists under the following aspects: 1) the nature-attracted tourist destinations, 2) the man-made tourist attractions, 3) the local people who attract the tourists and make creations to draw interest out of the tourists, 4) the facilities consisting of accommodations, restaurants and bars and 5) the transportation and public relations. In addition, another key factor is the public utility which includes transportation system, electrical system, water supply system, communication system, waste water treatment and garbage disposal within the communities. Thus, the local communities require an involvement of all administrative organizations in solving the challenging factors as well as improving the public utility that causes an impact on the conservation and culture tourism of the local communities so as to fairly distribute the income and concretely reduce social gaps between the urban society and rural society. That will strengthen the communities which will later build up the nation in sustainability.