UPGRADING COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM TO CREATE A TOURIST EXPERIENCE BASED ON THE PERSONA OF GASTRONOMY TOURISTS IN CHIANG KHAN DISTRICT, LOEI PROVINCE

Abstract

This research aimed to 1) analyze exploratory factors (Exploratory Factor Analysis: EFA) of the persona of Gastronomy tourists. 2) develop community tourism activities to create tourist experiences according to the persona of Gastronomy tourists. In Chiang Khan District, Loei, 3) create a program to analyze the personality of food tourists to recommend travel routes. It is a mixed methods research by using descriptive statistics and content analysis.

The research results indicated that the analysis of the survey-based exploratory factor analysis (EFA) employed the principal components factoring method to extract four underlying factors from the Gastronomy tourist personas, namely "Big eater," "Shrugger," "Activist," and "Super taster." Furthermore, the creative Gastronomy tourism activities tailored to the persona of Gastronomy tourists align with the components of creative Gastronomy tourism activities. The "Big eater" and "Shrugger" tourist groups focus on learning and enjoyment-oriented activities, while the "Activist" and "Super taster" groups engage in activities that offer opportunities for participation, learning, and enjoyment simultaneously from the program analyzed the personality of food signals for recommending tourist routes.