Turning Tsunami Disaster Affected Site into Community Based Tourism Focusing on Dark Tourism: The Case of Bann Nok Lay, Phuket Community Participation Model

Abstract

As much as it is important to sympathize with victims of natural disasters such as Tsunamis, there are other ways in which the events could be packaged and presented to yield economic outcomes such as dark tourism that would benefit the affected communities, victims and society as a whole. Thus, this study focused on understanding Bann Nok Lay in terms of dark tourism. The research objectives therefore are 1) to investigate if there was a potential for dark tourism at Bann Nok Lay, 2) to understand the behavior and expectation of tourists towards dark tourism in relation to Tsunami disaster; and 3) to propose community participation model. These objectives were achieved by the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, employing questionnaire and semi-structured interview checklist, where 5 experts, 400 international tourists and 400 community members were involved in the survey. The research outputs are 1) the potential expressed by the community does not justify that they are prepared for dark tourism. It emerged that the community members have a strong urge to take advantage of the economic viabilities that come with dark tourism, 2) the expectations of the tourists are different from the community member’s potential. What this implies is that the potential expressed by members of the community does not justify that they are prepared for dark tourism when their potential is related to the expectations of the tourists; and 3) a systematic participation model was suggested. Thus, there is as well the need to improve tourism publicity since it was noted that in Thailand, especially dark tourism in Ban Nok Lay has not grown strong enough to attract large groups of people and multiple visits.