Analysis on Tourism Situation in the Coastal Areas of Trang Province

Abstract

This research aims to analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and obstacles of tourism in Trang coastal areas through qualitative research, data collection from documentary research, and in-depth interview. The research tool on semi-structured interview has been employed to select 17 particular interviewees from governmental agencies, private sectors, and community representatives for content analysis. The study results show that the strengths of tourism in Trang coastal areas consist of unique tourism resources, traditions, and culture, abundant seagrass resources, a sole residence of Dugong in Andaman Sea with an all-round transportation system and renowned provincial souvenirs. Trang province is regarded as the center of ecotourism for Southern Andaman Sea with a variety of tourism activities both onshore and offshore. On the contrary, the weaknesses of Trang coastal areas tourism compose of insufficient and belowstandard infrastructure and transportation routes, the lacks of value-added tourism resources development and foreign languages proficiency tour guides, a small number of exotic tourism activities, an inconsistent and inadequate budget allocation affecting tourist attractions development on beauty and standard criteria as well as the shortage of conservation and management for sustainable culture and ways of life. In terms of opportunities, the tourism in Trang coastal areas has emerged from the growth of BRIC. The government emphasizes on tourism. Since Trang Province is located on the collaboration area of the Economic Development Group, IMT-GT, technology advancements have enabled better approach to tourists. Travelers preferred short trips and the popularity of ecotourism trend are likely to increase. Lastly, the obstacles of Trang coastal areas tourism are caused by the global and domestic economic recession, occurrences of disasters, natural disasters, epidemics and global climate change along with tourist competition and snatching from neighboring provinces and countries, intermittent tourism management, and legal restrictions on tourist attractions developments in Trang national park.