Factors Relating to Participation Needs on Eco-tourism Management of Farmers in Samut Prakarn Province

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study 1) demographic of farmers, media exposure, trustable of information and the participation needs of farmers. 2) Factors related to participation needs in eco-tourism management of farmers in Samut Prakan Province, a sample were 370 people by stratified random sampling technique. Use questionnaires as a tool for data collection, using the Linkert scale 5 levels (1-5) in analyzed data and using descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, average, maximum, minimum, standard deviation and inferential statistics with Pearson product moment correlation coefficient analysis. The research revealed that 1) the majority of the farmers were male (61.60%) with an average age of 46.61 years old, secondary education level (37.80%), period of living in Samut Prakan province an average of 44.89 years. Farmers were exposure to from all types of media gained a high level of trustable to media activities and mass media but medium level with personal media and the lowest for social media and print media, respectively. Farmers needed holistic participation in the management of eco-tourism at a moderate level (  = 3.02±0.28) and at the partial were
same moderate level too, namely implementation (  = 3.07±0.73), benefits gained (  = 3.07±0.73) follow up
(  = 3.02±0.58) and decision (  = 2.94±0.37) 2) relationship between demographic with participation needs of farmers in positively with eco-tourism management were age, period of living, total income and agri-labour, but in the opposite direction, were land holding and family members. The media exposure with related to the participation needs were the print media from brochures, activities media from learning plot and contest, in the opposite were personal media from role model farmer.