Opinions of local people on agritourism: a case study in Bua Thoeng village, Tha Change sub-district, Sawang Weeravong district, Ubon Ratchathani province

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the opinions of local people on agritourism: a case study in Bua Thoeng village, Tha Change sub-district, Sawang Weeravong district, Ubon Ratchathani Province in order to use it as a guideline for promoting and further strengthen the agritourism community. The samples are 128 households who live in the village, representative of each household. Structure interview schedules was used to collect data. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistic as frequency, percentage, average and standard deviation. Opinions were divided into 5 levels; strongly agree, agree, Neutral, disagree and strongly disagree which were interpreted by using mean score. The t-test analysis was used to compare local people’s opinion between groups of the differences on main occupation, time living in the community and membership of agritourism group. The results show that most of them express their opinions at strongly agree level on the issue of having an agritourism helps people in the community earn income, create an extra jobs and improve natural resources and environment of the community as well as transportation system. However, groups of people who lived in the community from less than 30 years and those who were not members of the agritourism group have an uncertain opinion on the issue of additional income and reducing migration via having agritourism. To strengthening the community and building cooperation in agritourism activities, therefore, more communication and participation to find out the reasonable sharing in the benefits received from agritourism activities for both groups of people are necessary.