Abstract:
The purposes of this research were to study and review the guidelines for creating a creative tourism model; to then develop a creative tourism model; to adopt the model in Phetchaburi Province and to assess it using mixed research methods. Data were collected by six key informants using purposive sampling and involved: 1) 13 provincial tourism policy makers; 2) 30 provincial community tourism leaders with data collected by means of focus groups; 3) 300 community tourism entrepreneurs with data collected by in-depth interviews; 4) seven experts, with data collected by evaluating the creative tourism model standard; 5) 30 creative tourists with data collected by assessing their satisfaction with tourism management, and 6) 18 members of the creative tourism group in the target area, testing their knowledge and understanding of creative tourism, and evaluating observed changes. The results of the research showed that:
1. Guidelines for creating the creative tourism model consisted of four steps: building knowledge and understanding, crisis resolution, developing and building immunity. These in turn consisted of five activities and involved 34 approaches. Taken together, these spawned the resultant creative tourism model with three fundamental components: creative community, creative tourism, and creative tourists.
2. The creative tourism model has, through a systematic and reliable educational process tailored to Phetchaburi's local context, and, following the development goals, resulted in a developmental process carried out from the bottom up, leading to community strength and sustainability. A standards assessment conducted among the community found that the process was accepted at a most positive level.
3. The successful creative tourism model developed for, and adopted in Phetchaburi province, required three fundamental management techniques: 1) the A-1-C technique, 2) the COP learning practice in the community technique, and 3) the effective management technique P-D-C- A, resulting in changes in three dimensions: economic social, and environmental.