Competitive Advantage Enhancement Strategy for Ecotourism Attractions inChonburi Province to Attract Incentive Tourists

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to study factors affecting the
competitive advantage enhancement for ecotourism attractions and developing
tourism strategy to attract incentive tourists for ecotourism attraction in
Chonburi province. Research methodologies were mixed between quantitative
and qualitative research. Qualitative data were collected from 3 people who
are involved with tourism policy planning by using in-depth interview as
an instrument. The questionnaires were also used as data collection tools
for Thai and foreign tourists, including tourism and hospitality industries
entrepreneurs by using the simple random sampling method. The result of this
research found that there are strengths of ecotourism attraction in Chonburi
such as; high potential natural resources which are most beautiful place in
Thailand, there are various agriculture development projects that could be
generated income to local people, easy to access with a short distance from
Bangkok. Moreover, there are learning sources that supported creative tourism
activities such as mangrove, museums, and conservation center. On the other
hand, the research found some of the management problems in order to
enhance competitive advantage such as; indifference tourism and hospitality
business, especially for the programing, activities, distribution channel,
and marketing. Lack of teamwork skills as a network, the problems of nondistribution business opportunities, just occurred in some area, including
lack of human resources who are professional and willing to work. Thus,
researcher give some of problems solving, suggestion and tourism strategy
to enhance the ecotourism attraction competitive of Chonburi province and
attract incentive tourists as following three strategies; 1) value added strategy
2) value diversity strategy and 3) value creation.