Sustaining and Marketing Community-Based Tourism: Some Observations and Lessons Learned From Thailand

Abstract

In Thailand, despite having the products and services that are of interest to consumers, many community-based tourism destinations have difficulty in economically sustaining themselves, primarily due to poor or lack of marketing capacity. Most have relied on visitors’ words-of-mouth, the occasional coverage in local media, and on being included in tour operators’ packages. Nevertheless, observations and findings show that destinations can overcome this deficit by securing support and business partnerships, and diversifying their products and services. Observations and findings further show that study groups, mostly from local educational institutions, make the bulk of the visitors to community-based tourism destinations. Hence, these destinations should work towards securing this target group, thereby potentially securing some economic sustainability. On the contrary, community tourism that takes the form of floating markets and community markets, which depends on word-of-mouth and occasional mention in local media, does not run short of visitors. This is partly due to the inherent nature of Thais having a strong affinity for shopping. Furthermore, visitations to floating and community markets require little effort and resource.