THE POTENTIAL OF MUAYTHAI CAMPS TO SUPPORT TOURISM FOR FOREIGN TOURISTS

Abstract

The purposes of this research were 1) to study the potential of Muaythai camps on using Muaythai to promote tourism for foreign tourists who had trained Muaythai in Thailand, 2) to study the obstacles of Muaythai camps to support foreign tourists. The samples used in this research were 449 foreign tourists who had trained Muaythai in 6 regions of Thailand and 20 people of Muaythai camp managers. The instruments used were questionnaire and Semi - Instructor interview questions with Pearson‘s product moment correlation coefficients test at .91. The results were found as follows: The quantitative results were found that the overall potential of Muaythai camps on using Muaythai to promote tourism for foreign tourists who had trained Muaythai in Thailand was at a high level ( =4.18). As each aspect, it was found that value, reputation and attraction were at a high level ( =4.28), marketing ( =4.21), accessibility ( =4.17). Statistical significant difference was found when comparing in each region at the level .05. Muaythai camp in Bangkok was different from the Central region, North Eastern region and Eastern region at the statistical significant level of .05. Eastern region was different from North Eastern region at the statistical significant level of .05. The qualitative results were found that Muaythai products convinced foreign tourists to come to train Muaythai. There were many supplies for supporting foreign tourists who wanted to train Muaythai. Muaythai camps had various strategies for managing and supporting Muaythai camp business. Moreover, lack of coordination with government organization was found to promote Muaythai for Thailand tourism. The obstacles of Muaythai camps for foreign tourists were 1) Visa permission, 2) short time training by a trainer, 3) limited space and 4) loud noise interrupting the neighborhood.