Thailands Creative Tourism - Research Proposal Example

Research proposal: Effective and Preferred Form of Creative Economy Policy Implementation: Thailand’s Creative Tourism Introduction: In a world that in increasingly global not to mention increasingly competitive, most countries and places need more and more to be imaginative and original in the promotion of themselves as tourist destinations so that they are able to maintain a culture individuality thereby ensuring that they have the ability to attract more and more tourism (Lindroth, Ritalahti and Soisalon-Soininen, 2007). Given the fact that the physical aspects of the tourism attractions are mostly the same in any given country-(there are the hills and there are the beaches), and the fact that these often converge in a process of "serial reproduction", hence there would automatically be a growing need on the development of intangible cultural resources and creativity (Richards and Wilson, 2006). Statement of Problem: The development of distinctiveness based on insubstantial or elusive cultural backings or creativity would automatically need potential tourism destinations to ensure establishment of links in the mind of the visitor between particular manifestations of culture and creativity and specific locations. The process is aided by the rise of the regions, which has now produced a raft of more localized, embedded cultural symbols alongside global or national cultural symbols. The process is long stretched and often limits tourism possibilities. It is here that the importance of creative tourism comes into the picture. 1. The number of tourists in Thailand has seen a steady decline with the numbers in the first half o 2009 drooping down 4.7 million a 14.7 percent decline over to the same period in 2008. 2. The problems that have led to this decline coupled with the steps that could be takenb to stem the tide woul form part o the dissertation. Creative Tourism: Creative tourism has been defined as tourism which offers visitors the opportunity to develop their creative potential through active participation in learning experiences which are characteristic of the holiday destination where they are undertaken (Richards, 2001). One has to understand the fact that within the travel realm, there are too few chances to be creative imaginative and concomitantly the travel does not touch the human spirit in meaningful ways (Landry, 1997). The term could be understood to define tourism which offers visitors the opportunity to develop their creative potential through active participation in courses and learning experiences which are characteristic of the holiday destination where they are undertaken (Wurzburger and Pattakos, 2009). Unsuspecting tourists are therefore left shortchanged at best, and empty at worst, as a result of experiences that for all practical and existential purposes are disengaging-even hollow-in their bottom line effects. Research Objectives: Context: In the context of international successful tourism development there have been numerous attempts made by various countries to ensure that they are ones leading the pack in search of the attracting the tourist crowds. Those that have successfully managed to do this are countries like Hong-Kong, New Zealand, Korea and Great Britain among others. 1. The following research would analyze the growth prospects of creative tourism in Thailand against the backdrop of the strategies that have been employed by other countries, the present resources that could be harnessed and a tourism campaign that could be come up with. 2. The basic idea in the research would be to identify best ways to implement creative tourism in Thailand. Plan of analysis: Study Scope The paper will focused on three basic plans. 1. First it would analyze the available data and methods on the manner in which other countries of the world have utilized the technique of creative tourism development in increasing tourist footfalls. 2. The second thing it will do is a SWOT analysis of the available resources where the tourism opportunities in Thailand are concerned., the target audience, the major potential focus marketing points. 3. Finally it will come up with some kind of a plan of action complete with target numbers, investment figures and returns on investment where the development of this tourism culture within Thailand is concerned. Justification for research: In a world where the only way to ensure that the idea one has is to sell is to ensure that the idea is unique, it would become imperative for the tourism development aims to ensure that the tourists being attracted are being offered something extra, something special, something different (Getz, 1986). Contemporarily, it is easy to assume the fact that tourism has acquired a special position in the brand building attempts that have become a staple for most countries post the cold war. Besides this one cannot undermine the economic importance of tourism and the potential contributions to a nation’s GDP. If one, for example looks at the numbers the picture becomes very clear about the need for a proper tourism related strategy that most countries around the world need to adopt. In the US alone, it is the nation’s third largest retail sales industry and one of America’s largest employers. It is in fact the first, second or third largest employer in 28 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, creating 7.8 million jobs nationally. The industry has evolved as one of the greatest growing assets and job providers of the US economy. In 1999, direct travel spending in the United States by domestic and international travelers reached nearly $519 billion dollars, 5.6 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product (CSO Tourism and travel figures, 1999). The idea therefore is that assuming that there is a presence of creativity needed where tourism development is considered, the importance of the issue arises from the fact that tourism for the host nation is one of the better known methods of substantiating GDP by bringing in foreign spends. Literature Review: Dependant variable and Independent Varibles: The concepts of independent and dependant variables and of predictors and criteria, lose the absolute meaning that they have in traditional research, whih assumes unidirectional casuality. What may function in the long run as a criterion or a dependant vraivble at a certain stage of process may at the next stage serve as the predictor or the indepnedant variable. Dependant to independent variable An independent variable is the presumed cause, whereas the dependent variable is the presumed effect. Using the dependant and independent variables one would be able to maintain control over the research in the quantitative mannet thereby allowing the research to measure results and draw accurate conclusions. The two variables that would be focused on would be the reasons that lead to the pother memebers of the ASEAN bracket to choose international travel over travel to Thailand, and impacyt of the slowdown on tourism travel. International tourism demand is generally measured in terms of the number of tourist visits from an origin country/region to a destination country/region, or in terms of tourist expenditure by visitors from the origin country/region in the destination. .The number of tourist nights spent by residents of the origin in the destination is an alternative tourism demand measure. Past Models of Research: The emerging models of tourism forecast and demand generation are focused on broader applications and further improvements of the industry. The methodologies are likely to benefit research in this area, particularly, the following directions are of interest and value in future econometric studies of tourism demand. 1. Further application of the AIDS/LAIDS especially its ECM form for analyzing and predicting market shares and their variations. 2. Combination of the STSM and TVP model to forecast seasonal tourism demand. 3. Further employment of the AR(I)MAX model and examination of its forecasting performance in comparison with other econometric models. 4. Comparison of the abilities of alternative models to forecast tourism demand changes (or growth).   5. Investigation of the forecasting performance of advanced econometric models in dealing with seasonality in tourism demand.  Research Methodology: Where the research methodology is concerned, there would be the qualitative method. The study intends to use inferential and descriptive qualitative approach to gain a deeper understanding of the research objectives. The approach would help in the examination of the current nature of tourism attraction points that are prevalent. For this purpose, the research will use an online survey method. This is easy to create and administer and would cost a lot less than other hard copy method surveys. The method would help in ensuring that the research retains its empirical nature. This has its basis in the assumption that social reality has an objective ontological structure and that individuals are responding agents to this objective environment (Morgan & Smircich, 1980). The basic functioning assumption behind the positivist paradigm is that there is an objective truth existing in the world that can be measured and explained scientifically (Cassell and Symon, 1994). The method is highly deductive and particularistic. The qualitative method would base the research on documentary functions, presenting one variable in a given chapter. It would analyse the observations throygh brhavior. Participation aspects of the work. These would be used in the collection and data and analysis. The focus group would be made of of prominent people invited from the field and direct discussion questions would then be posed so that answers could be analyzed. The in-depth interview technique is to be used to describe the depth of information. Method Of Tourism Forecasting: Population: In this research a total of 100 people spanning the many walks of life, accessed online through the creation of a blog, would be used as a sample to determine the levels of effective tourism strategies in the face of a growing world characterized by a population that is more careful with its money in the wake of the financial crisis is to be analyzed. This sample will be a mix of different levels of professional groupings in terms of seniority and facilities of work. They would be able to provide adequate feedback on the success/failure of the new policies. Research Limitations: The basic limitation that the research would have to deal with is the fact that the research at the end of the day is essentially predictive in nature, and would assign ultimately to be a gamble. This is true because of the fact that there could be no foolproof strategies of attracting tourists to a given event or a given landscape. The second limitation would be that in the survey choices, the socially correct bias would still remain. Budget and Timeline The research would be completed over 4 months with the help of the library computers and would also make use of the library surveys available. The funding needed for the research would be of about $2000. Reference: Richards, G., (2001). Cultural attractions and European tourism. CABI. p65 Richards, G., and Wilson, J., (2006). Tourism, Creativity and Development. Routledge. p5-12  Lindroth, K., Ritalahti, J., and Soisalon-Soininen, T., (2007). Creative tourism in destination development. Journal of tourism Review. 64(3/4). Pp53-58 Landry, C., (1997). Expecting imagination: Travel as a creative trigger. Penguin Books Wurzburger, R., and Pattakos, A., (2009). Creative Tourism, a Global Conversation. Sunstone Press. p30 Tourism and sustainable development, Global importance of Tourism, Background paper 1, Retrieved March 9, 2010, http://un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/wttc.pdf Getz, D. (1986). Models in Tourism Planning; Towards Integration of Theory and Practice, Tourism Management, 7 (1), 21-32 Smith M.J. (1988). Contemporary communication research methods. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Inc  Cassell, C., & Symon, G. (1994). Qualitative research in work contexts. In C. Cassell, & G. Symon (Eds.), Qualitative methods in organizational research (pp. 1-13). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications  Morgan, G., & Smircich, L. (1980). The case for qualitative research. Academy of Management Review, 5, 491-500  Hart, C., (1998). Doing a literature review: releasing the social science research imagination. Sage. p142 Read More