The Best Practice of Creative Tourism Management in Agricultural Communities for Promotion of Holistic Education

Abstract

Creative tourism is a creativity-oriented tourism development process derived from the extension of cultural capital, lifestyle, and existing wisdom of various local communities. It is the new tourism management approach allowing tourists to enjoy opportunities for tourism activity participation in which they can exchange knowledge and enjoy direct experiences. This qualitative research employed in-depth interviews as a research tool, while the obtained data were analyzed using the content analysis technique. The data were collected from 15 key informants selected by purposive sampling. They were divided into 3 groups of 5 members each: (1) senior tourism experts, entrepreneurs and instructors in public organizations, (2) instructors of holistic education subjects, and (3) entrepreneurs, farmers, and experts in local communities practicing New Theory Agriculture based on Sufficiency Economy. The agricultural communities' best practice was classified under creative tourism management in terms of creating added value for communities and building uniqueness for agricultural communities. Such creative tourism concept has become part of holistic education in Thai schools and universities for multidimensional student development. It focuses on an individual's physical, mental, intellectual, and life-skill developments to become a well-cultivated human being. The best practice of creative tourism in agricultural communities thus serves as an outside classroom learning approach that enables learners to understand society and inspire  themselves  to extend creativity into their future career. The researcher examined  two important areas of the best practice of creative tourism in agricultural communities in promoting holistic education: (1) learners’ interaction and knowledge dissemination and transfer for comprehensive understandings; (2)  learners’ participation in collaborative thinking and taking actions based on the identified purpose. The first area involves skill training and implementation, while the second fosters inspiration, problem-solving task training, and creative thinking development.

 Keywords: The best practice of creative tourism management, creative tourism in agricultural communities, creative thinking development, holistic education