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CHALERMPAT PONGAJARN

Tourist Destination Development in , : An Actor-Network Perspective Date: August 27th, 2010 Course: MSc. Thesis Leisure, Tourism & Environment Wageningen University Department of Environmental Sciences Chair Group: Socio Spatial Analysis Student: Chalermpat Pongajarn Student code: 770925662130 Examiners: Dr. Rene van der Duim, Ir. Karin Peters

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Summary This research analyzed development of tourism configuration in the Pai District, Thailand. In the past three decades, Pai District has encountered the processes transforming this rural area to trekking and ethnic tourism, backpacker hub, and destination for filmic and mass tourists. In order to explain the destination development, tourism was considered as a system, and the research focused on influence of actors and their relations that contributed tourism system. An Actor-Network Theory was used as theoretical background to analyze tourism system. The field research consisted of in-depth interviews with tourism entrepreneurs, local people, government organization officers, and tourists, observation on site, and informal interviews.

The results showed there were three tourism configurations constructed in Pai District. The first one was constructed in 1980s as ethnic tourism expanding from tourism in . After the area had been named in tourist guidebooks, the number of backpackers in the area had increased and they began to build their own community inside the area. The dense networks of these backpackers provided new norms and vision on Pai District. In this tourism configuration, Pai District was defined as the destination for relaxation and enjoying live music, international foods, and nature. Pai town, the center of the district, gradually turned into a hub for backpackers in 1990s. In 2006, Pai District was used as a location for Thai romantic-comedy movie. The image of Pai District was shaped by the movie‘s story line which impacted Thais‘ perspectives on the destination. After that, Pai District has been focused by domestic tourists as the romantic destination and the number of domestic tourists in the area was incredible increased. The new tourism configuration was constructed by having Thai tourists as focal actors.

In conclusion, tourism configurations in Pai District were constructed by the relations of actors who shared the same interest such as adventure, relaxation, and romance. Tourism development were not only depended on endogenous factors such as natural resources and local culture, but also depended on exogenous materials linking destination with tourists such as roads, guidebooks, and movies. Developing or sustaining destination should consider on network construction and strengthening relations in tourism configuration.

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Acknowledgement In 1997, I visited Pai District for the first time as a volunteer tourist. It was a tradition for many college students in Thai universities to devote their school break to do something for poor people in underdeveloped areas. I had stayed with a family for fifteen days in order to construct a new school building for hill tribe children on the top of a mountain. That experience provided me a narrative about Pai District as the mountain area that was far from the development and difficult for people to visit. In the early of year 2009, I saw my friend‘s trip review posted in his blog. The story told about his participation in reggae music concert held on the top of mountain in Pai District. The conflict between my narrative and the current situation in Pai District was inspired me to conduct this research.

I had the great time while I was collecting data in Pai District, so I would like to thank all the people in Pai District and for their hospitality, especially the one who sent me to the hospital when I broke my arm there. Otherwise, I might not survive to finish this research. I would like to thank Jatuporn Wisitchotiaungkoon, Prypansang and people in Free Form bookstore who not only shared the information with me, but also provided the place for me to stay and work during the period of time that all cheap accommodation in Pai town was not available for me. I also would like to thank my friends, Kulkaew and Sudkate, who helped me

3 find information while I stayed abroad, and introduced me to many people relating with this research.

Writing qualitative research in English was a very new thing to me, and I had been lost many times while I conducted this research. Therefore, I would like to thank Dr. Rene Van Der Duim for being patient, providing enormous valuable instruction, and encouraging me until I able to finish this paper.

I would like to dedicate this paper to my mother who tried to help me in anything that she could do including finding the information and a person to revise my work. I also want to dedicate this work to my father who inspired me and made me want to be a better person until I was able to come here for study.

Now, I understand that I could not achieve in anything just by myself. ‗We always need networks‘. That would be pretty much story about me and this research.

Chalermpat Pongajarn 27/08/2010

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Contents Summary ...... 2 Acknowledgement ...... 3 List of figures, pictures, and tables ...... 6 Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 8 1.1 Background ...... 8 1.2 Problem Statement ...... 11 1.3 Research objective...... 12 1.4 Research Questions ...... 12 1.5 Thesis structure ...... 13 Chapter 2 Theoretical Background ...... 13 2.1 Tourism destination development ...... 14 2.2 Actor-Network Theory ...... 18 2.2.1 Actor-Network and tourism configuration ...... 20 2.2.2 Modes of ordering ...... 20 2.2.3 Translation Process ...... 22 Chapter 3 Methodology ...... 24 3.1 Characteristic of the research ...... 24 3.2 Data collection...... 24 3.3 Data analysis ...... 27 3.4 Limitations of the research ...... 27 Chapter 4: Development of Tourism Configurations in Pai District ...... 28 4.1 The first tourism configuration (1980-1999): Trekking and ethnic tourism ...... 28 4.1.1 Social background: Roads and Pai District development ...... 28 4.1.2 Pai District as a stopover point for tourists ...... 31 4.1.3 Adventure tourism and its translation process ...... 32 4.1.4 Explorer Tourists and Accommodation Business in Pai District ...... 35 4.1.5 The rise of local trekking tour business ...... 38 4.1.6 Adventure tourism business in Pai District ...... 40 4.1.7 Conclusion ...... 42 4.2 The Second Tourism Configuration (1995 - Present): Heaven for Backpackers (UTOPAI) ...... 45

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4.2.1 Tourist guide books and backpackers ...... 46 4.2.2 Drug and tourism in second era ...... 47 4.2.3 Bamboo house and accommodation in Pai District in the second era ...... 48 4.2.4 Motivation and perception of Pai from foreign backpackers ...... 49 4.2.5 Growth of tourism businesses for foreign backpackers ...... 50 4.2.6 The fall of Local Trekking Tour ...... 55 4.2.7 Conclusion ...... 56 4.3 The third tourism configuration (2006 - present): Romantic destination...... 61 4.3.1 Government‘s policies ...... 62 4.3.2 Influence of movies and media toward tourism configuration in Pai District ...... 68 4.3.3 General characteristics of Thai tourist ...... 72 4.3.4 Tourism businesses‘ concepts and strategies ...... 73 4.3.5 Accommodation business in the third era...... 76 4.3.6 Conclusion ...... 80 Chapter 5 Conclusion and Discussion ...... 82 5.1 Introduction ...... 82 5.2 Conclusion ...... 82 5.3 Discussion ...... 85 5.4 Recommendations for future research...... 87 5.4.1 Researches follow actors ...... 88 5.4.2 Researches analyze development in different destinations ...... 88 References ...... 90 APPENDIX 1: Time line of development in Pai District ...... 95 APPENDIX 2: Interview respondents ...... 100

List of figures, pictures, and tables Figures Figure 1: Plog‘s evolution of destination life cycle according to traveler type 15 Figure 2: Butler (1980)‘s Tourism Area Life Cycle model 16 Figure 3: Structure of in-depth interview sampling 26 Figure 4: Route of organized tours in first era 32

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Figure 5: Trekking tour agencies‘ translation 35 Figure 6: Map of Pai District tourism business in the 1990 44 Figure 7-8: Map of tourism business in Pai District in 2007 60

Pictures Picture 1: 10 Picture 2: an example of hill tribe people in Pai District 10 Picture 3: Path for walking to Pai District before the road was constructed 28 Picture 4: The gravel road to Pai District 29 Picture 5: Pai District town scenery in first era 37 Picture 6: Bamboo rafting in 41 Picture 7: Elephant riding in Pai District 41 Picture 8: Pai hot spring 42 Picture 9: Scenery in downtown of Pai District area in 1998 45 Picture 10-11: Example of bamboo guest house 49 Picture 12: Souvenir shop in Pai District 53 Picture 13: Pub in Pai District 54 Picture 14: Scenery of Pai town in 2009 61 Picture 15-16: Sontichon Village 64 Picture 17: Signs in Pai District 66 Picture 18: and air plane 68 Picture 19: Location in town from the first film called ‗Ruk Jung‘ 70 Picture 20: Example of Thai tourist behavior affected by filmic icons 72 Picture 21: Landmark in Pai District in the third tourism configuration 74 Picture 22: Small guest house in Pai District 77 Picture 23: Medium size accommodation 79 Picture 24: Large size accommodation in Pai District 80 Picture 25: Palio ‗The Little Italy‘ 89

Tables Table 1: Summary of Pai District tourism configuration development 84

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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Background Social and economic structures of rural areas in Thailand have been changed since the announcement of Thai National Development Plan in 1970s. The development of infrastructure during 1970 and 1990, such as road and transportation system, influenced the establishment and growth of tourism in Thailand. Tourism in Thailand was known for international tourists in 1960s and had been significantly increased during 1970s and 1980s because it had been supported and promoted from Thai government that has inserted tourism as one of main strategies for developing country in Thai National Development Plan since 1977 (Lortanavanit, 2007). The impact from government development policy and tourism are the significant factors changing social structure in rural areas of Thailand. For example, Pattaya used to be a fishing village in 1970, but nowadays it becomes one of the main international destinations without any native people in the area (Chompa, 2002).

The geography of Thailand can be divided into two parts. The southern part of Thailand is full of marine resources, such as sand beaches and tropical islands. The northern part of Thailand not only consists of natural resources, such as mountains and tropical forests, but also cultural landscape featuring a variety of culture including Sukhothai, Lanna, and a diversity of miner ethnic groups such as Akha, Karen, Lahu, Lisu, and Lolo. Rural areas in the has been developed to continental tourist destinations, especially ethnic tourism consisting of so- called ―hill tribe‖ trekking tours. With Chiang Mai as epicenter, ethnic tourism became popular, particularly for young western backpackers, in the last decades of the 20th century. However, it has been declined recently as a result of national socio-economic changes in Thailand and also the changing composition of tourist populations (Cohen, 2008).

Pai District, the research site in the northern Thailand, is a district in The in the northern part of Thailand. The northern part of Pai District is adjacent to Burma. The eastern and southern parts connect to Chiang Mai. Its western part is adjacent to the main district and Pang Ma Pha of Mae Hong Son. Highway 1095 connects Mae Hong Son the main district and Chiang Mai where Pai District is in between these two cities (110 kilometers from

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Mae Hong Son to Pai District and 135 kilometers from Pai District to Chiang Mai). The route is steep and has 762 curves through the mountains so it takes a few hours for travelling along (TAT, 1986).

Pai District is a large area of plain land surrounded by the mountain terrains as a barrier line between Pai District and other areas. Pai District is about 508 meters above sea level but the highest point, Doi Mae Ya, is 2,005 meters. This high land is a beautiful forestry area. Pai District has several rivers (The Pai river as the main river along with six or seven other rivers originated from the hills around) that run through the whole district and have been used for living and farming of residents there. Pai River flows from Pai District through Mae Hong Son until it meets in Burma. From this landscape, Pai District often has flood problem in the rainy season. This fact was indicated that the latest serious flood was in 2005. (Construction Work and Planning Office of Mae Hong Son Province, 2008). Pai District has a tropical climate and is covered by fog a whole year. The weather is very hot (average around 38 degree Celsius) in summer (March-May), a lot of rain in rainy season (June – October) and cold (average around 13 degrees Celsius in January) in winter (November-February). This kind of weather makes winter the high season for tourism.

Pai Distrit has a different ethnic history from other areas in the north Thailand that made the area consist of a diversity of ethnic cultures. Around 1251, Shan was the first group of people who immigrated into the area. In the past, used to be an independent state, but now it is under the government of Burma. The political conflict between Burma government and Shan State drove people down to settle their new accommodation in Mae Hong Son province at present. Historically, Chiang Mai and its satellite cities was once the Lanna kingdom. Since the kingdom had a conflict with the Shan State and, in the end, the Lanna troops won the Shan army in 1481, the area was claimed to be part of the Lanna kingdom, however, Shan people were allowed to continuously live in the area.

In late 19th century, Britain‘s companies (Bombay Burma and Borneo) invaded forest concessions in northern part of Thailand and established a branch of a timber business in Pai District which brought immigration of Thais and hill tribes into the area. In the colony era, the

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United Kingdom seized Burma and Shan as its colonies. This situation caused the border line conflict between Thai and British since the British claimed that there were a lot of Shan people in Mae Hong Son and Pai area, so it should be part of its colony. This made the royal house pushed more Thai people from nearby provinces to live in Mae Hong Son and Pai area. In 1911, Thailand fused all kingdoms together and declared its kingdom as one country; Pai became a district in the province of Mae Hong Son.

Picture 1: Shan people Picture 2: an example of hill tribe people in Pai District

As the Shan group settled in the area for a long time, architecture of temple, home, and sculpture as well as local tradition were influenced by the culture of the Shan. This made Pai District unique and different from other areas such as Chiang Mai or Sukhothai and these characters mentioned are points of interest in the attraction of Pai District later (Kasper, 2006; Mae Hong Son Cultural Office, 2006; Wongtubtim, 2002). Nowsaday, Pai District consists of 7 sub districts. Each sub district has its own local government and there is also a municipal government who supervises downtown area located in Wiang Tai Sub District. The population of Pai District is around 28,853 and the downtown area had a population of 2,284 in 2006: 53% of population is Thai and Shan (or Thai Yai or Tai) while the rest are hill tribe people, including Karen (17%), Hmong (5%), Lisu (15%), and other minority groups (10%) (Department of Provincial

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Administration, 2006). Hill tribe people have lived on the mountain area closed to Pai River. Migration of hill tribe people occurred in different periods of time (some communities have lived in Pai District for more than 100 years). Most of these people are not Thai citizen and have to live under Thai immigrant law (Lortanavanit, 2007; Wongtubtim, 2002).

Pai District made its first tourism appearance as ethnic tourism destination in the 1980s. Tourism in Pai District has rapidly grown after 1995. Number and genre of Tourism businesses in the area have increased. There are cheap guest houses (300 Baht per night), luxury resorts (12,000 Baht per night) and a range of products, such as trekking tours, bamboo guest houses, souvenirs, bars, reggae music events, international foods, local van tours, and many more. Nowadays, Pai District becomes one of the most popular destinations in Thailand that has a variety of tourists, such as hippies, foreign backpackers, Thai filmic tourists, and Thai mass tourists, come to visit.

1.2 Problem Statement Tourist destination developments usually studies through economic point of view. For example, Butler (1982)‘s the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) that viewed a destination as a product, and growth of a destination was expressed in term of visitor numbers. This approach has been criticized that it perceives tourist destination as a static system consisting of elements such as attractions, accommodation, and infrastructure while destination development is perceived only as geographic/physical expansion such as increasing of infrastructure (Tinley and Lynch, 2001). This approach do not concern about cultural changes that affect destination development.

Development of tourism in Pai District is more complex than changing physical structure. There are many types of tourist come to visit Pai District in the same time. They have different characters, view Pai District from different perspectives, and impact growth of tourism business in different directions. For example, foreign backpackers and Thai tourists had significantly distinct behaviors and consumed different types of tourism businesses. Therefore, the simple economic models are less precise in giving explanation to tourism developed in Pai District.

These issues illustrate the requirement for studying tourist destination development from new theoretical analysis. According to Frisk (1999), destination development can be viewed as being

11 socially constructed. Therefore, a model providing an understanding in a process of social transformation, such as Actor-Network Theory, might be useful for providing an explanation of destination development. Recently, Actor-Network theory has been used by researchers (Paget et al., 2010; Van Der Duim and Caalders, 2008) to examine processes at work in tourism. The theory considers tourism as a hybrid collective in continuous motion called ‗tourism configuration‘. Tourism configuration consists of actors, non-human entities, and interactions that connect humans and non-humans together. Tourism configuration is conceptualized as ‗‗actor-networks connecting, within and across different societies and regions, transport-systems, accommodation and facilities, resources, environments, technologies, and people and organizations‘‘ (Van Der Duim, 2007, p. 967). Actor-Network theory provides a practical framework for examining development processes by focusing on materials leading changes in tourism configurations. Therefore the problem statement for this thesis is:

In the past three decades, tourism in Pai District has been developed through the processes that changed tourism configuration in the area. While traditional approach cannot provide reasonable explanation, one wonders how this development can be clarified by using Actor-Network perspective.

1.3 Research objective

The aim of this study is to analyze the development of tourism configurations in Pai District by using an Actor-Network perspective. Therefore, there are two objectives in this study. The first objective is to analyze tourism configurations in Pai District. The second objective is to analyze the process that changed tourism configurations in Pai District.

1.4 Research Questions 1) Which tourism configurations developed in the last three decades in Pai District, Thailand? -Who were focal actors in each tourism configuration? -Who were alliance partners that the focal actor formed relations with? -How the focal actor formed the alliance networks with these partners?

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-What were roles and practices of these alliance actors in tourism configuration?

2) How tourism configurations in Pai District had been developed? -Who was an actor that had a new vision about Pai District? -What is Pai District in this actor‘s vision? -What were materials that this actor used as equipments to contribute change? -How this actor contributed changes in other actors and relations in tourism configurations through the materials?

1.5 Thesis structure This thesis is structured in the following way: The first chapter provides a background of research topic, the problem statement, and the research objectives and questions. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical background of destination development theory and an Actor-Network practical framework for an analysis. Chapter 3 provides the methodological aspects of the research including the character of the research, data collection, data analysis and limitations of the research. Chapter 4 analyzes the data collected from a variety of methods in order to clarify the tourism development in Pai District. The development is divided into three eras from the difference of tourism configuration. An Actor-Network framework, such as translation process, is used to analyze tourism configuration in each era. The final chapter summarizes and discusses the most important findings of this study concludes with recommendations for future research.

Chapter 2 Theoretical Background

This chapter will draw the theoretical framework that will be used as a basis for analyzing data. The content is divided in two section. The first section provides fundamental concepts that has been used in tourist destination development studies. The second section offers a concept of Actor-Network Theory and its application in tourism study.

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2.1 Tourism destination development Tourism can be conceptualized as a social and cultural practice, thus tourist location can become meaningful as tourist places through the process of production that created relationship between human and non-human entities (Bærenholdt et al., 2004; Van der Duim, 2005). Development is described, in terms of, processes that transform society from one condition to another. Development does not refer to a single process, force, event, or static condition. Thus, a potential role of tourism in this development cannot be separated from the whole destination developmental context (Sharpley, 2000).

Between 1960s – 1980s, several frameworks of destination development had been provided in term of economical and physical evolution from one stage to another (Tooman, 1997). The model from Christaller (1963), which might not generally be applicable in present time, indicated that destination was discovered by artist who seek for unusual and peaceful places for their inspiration of work. Then, art production attracted rich people and being identified as fashionable. Afterwards, that certain place was transformed by commercialization forces and became attractive for mass working class people. In the end, the first group of visitors moved to find a new place where the new cycle replete.

Plog (1973) described development patterns through changing visitor types. He categorized three types of visitor as the venturer, the midcentric and the dependable, ranging from the more adventuresome behaviors to the less. As the most adventuresome who enjoy discovery and new experience, venturers are the first group of people who discover the place. The reputation and emergence of tourism facilities attracts midcentricts. The new group of tourists likes the destination where is comfortable and predictable, so tourism businesses in the area develop to serve the accommodation and places. The result is the growth of tourism businesses coming together with the increasing of popularity. Finally, it draws the other new groups. This depends on the other factors e.g. ones who travel less frequent, stay a shorter time, spend less money, and demand for common and comfortable places. The development of the place drives the original visitors out of the place to find another one. The figure below shows Plog‘s ideas of evolution of destination life cycle depending on traveler types.

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Figure 1: Plog’s evolution of destination life cycle according to traveler type

Butler (1980) provided the most well known destination development cycle. This model is called ‗Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model‘. The model divides tourist destination development into six stages:

Exploration Stage: The destination is discovered and explored by small numbers of explorer tourists. Tourists highly associate with local people and adapt themselves into local culture. Local natural and socio-economic of the destination has not changed because of travel business. Involvement stage: A gradual increasing in visitor numbers persuades some local people to respond to the tourism opportunities by offering facilities and other services to tourists. With high involvement with local people, tourism establishment is more stable and well known gradually. Development stage: Destination is defined as tourism destination. As the number of tourist continuously grows, the reputation of the destination spreads in both intensive and extensive ways and attract outside investment of the area. The accessibility is enhanced through the improvement of transportation. This might cause the changing image of the destination, as a result. Local facilities are replaced to be better managed ones. Therefore, local participation and control is decreased. Consolidation stage: The numbers of tourist and tourism-related activities are increased but in a declining growth rate. The destination‘s reputation attracts further distant tourists. The local residents have already had negative impressions toward tourist arrivals. The original facilities become the second class and undesirable.

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Stagnation stage: The growth of tourist numbers and tourism activities reach the highest point due to the deterioration of the product. The carrying capacity of the destination has already exceeded its limit and created economical, social and the environmental problems. The destination is perceived as ―out of fashion‖ places. The oversupply might lead to price wars in tourism businesses. Decline stage (the first option of final stage): The numbers of tourists decrease as the repeated tourists are no longer satisfied with the available products, while others are no longer able to recruit new visitors. Tourists move to new destinations. Tourism facilities are replaced by non-tourism establishment. The destination might become a tourism slum in the end. Rejuvenation (the second option of final stage): This stage is related to dramatic change in resources. The destination creates an entirely new set of tourism attractions, or re- images of the existing products, or utilized unexploited natural resources as a way of creating new sense of uniqueness.

The figure 2 shows area life cycle model of tourism according to Butlers‘ stages.

Figure 2: Butler (1980)’s Tourism Area Life Cycle model

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According to Butler (2006), there are key elements in the process of destination development that contribute to changes and to the shifting of tourism destination from one stage to another, including dynamism and carrying capacity.

Dynamism: Tourism has high level of dynamism characteristic. The internal change in destinations responses to growth in tourism businesses and physical changes in original attractions such as scenery and culture (Butler, 2009). Smith (1992) asserted that tourism destination development is driven by urbanization force which is ―a complex process of social and economic change whereby a society is transformed from an essentially rural to a predominantly urban one (Maurice Yeates and Barry Garner, 1976, p. 23)‖. The force enhances the physical, commercial and social components of the destination. Physical components include upgrading of housing stock and streetscapes. Commercial components cover the creation of viable business and service in the community. Social components are increasing employment. Carrying capacity: Carrying capacity of a destination could be defined, in terms of, physical environmental, economic and psychological capacities. When destination visitation exceeds these capacities of destination, it creates problems such as lacking of space, high land cost and high cost of living. As a result, a quality of experiences provided for visitors, a quality of life for residents and an appearance of the destinations would degenerate. Destination would become less attractive and the numbers of visitors would decline, in the end, the destination would turn into the decline stage (Butler, 2006).

These models from Plog and Butler are very useful in term of providing general aspects and possible patterns for tourism destination development, however they have been argued that the destination life cycle should not be considered as a fixed pattern, but rather one that can be re- directed through practices of stakeholders. For example, in many case studies the first stage of development was skipped or straightly jumps from the mature period to the decline period (Tooman, 1997). Russell and Faulkner (1999) used Chaos Theory to argue that destinations development might share some of the common aspects, but actors such as entrepreneurs have the power to create alternative futures to tourist destination. The influence of governance planning

17 and controlling was mentioned to be significantly importance for destination development (Butler, 2006).

Destination development is also affected by a lot of external factors. In these last three decades, the world has been rapidly changed from multiple forces, such as the introduction of transportation innovations and communication innovations. These innovations are unintentional and accidental triggers of the shifting in destination when there are actions corresponding to purposefully induced triggers. For example, they might affect amount of competing destinations, consumer tastes or forms of tourism, and duration of tourists at a destination. However, destinations might not be experienced the same forces at the same time and the different set of forces might create the different end results for destination (Butler, 2006).

To attempt to explain destination development in a more organic understanding, Tinsley and Lynch (2001) suggested that the networking and destination development should be considered together, and use interaction among actors to explain development process. The destination must be viewed as a whole system consisting networking as a component of this system that appears in three levels: individual level (individual interaction and relationships), community level (networks link community together), and destination level (networks link place and people together). However when considering tourism and networks in a destination development or destination transformation, there are still many new areas of study to be found. However when considering tourism and networks in a destination development or destination transformation, there are still many new areas of study to be found, since network can be viewed in broader definition than the meaning of Tinsley and Lynch. According to Castells (2004), the place of network is placeless because network is contributed in the spaces of flows, and place or destination receives meaning from interactions of actors in the specific network they belong. Therefore, tourism destination should not be considered as a place consisting of networks, but should be considered as a thing that is defined by placeless networks.

2.2 Actor-Network Theory Actor Network Theory (ANT), known as the sociology of translation, was derived in sociological studies of science and technology in the 1980s. Later it has spread into other

18 contexts of sociological analysis (Johannesson, 2005; Latour, 2005). Inspired from post- structural semiotics, ANT rejects that distinctions between science, technology, and society, in the other words, rejects the idea that ‗social relations‘ are separated from the material and natural world. The attention is paid on the ‗relational materiality‘ of our environment by bringing the ‗missing masses‘ of non-human actors into the frame (Johannesson, 2005; Latour, 1992; Law, 1992).

According to Callon and Latour (1981) and Callon (1991), a key feature of ANT is the ordering network. From that point the actors (human or nonhuman) are defined as ―any element which bends space around itself, makes other elements dependent upon it and translates their will into the language of its own (Callon and Latour, 1981, p. 286)‖. Therefore, each actor, such as humans, collectivities of humans, ideologies, methodologies, concepts, texts, computers, and other materials, can be defined only in relation to other actors (Law, 1992). In the other words, actors become meaningful when they are juxtaposed in the building of networks (Murdoch, 1998).

Concept of ANT lies on the principle of ‗general symmetry‘. This principle refuses the distinction between classes of actors (natural, social, local, global and so on) since everything, should be approached in the same way (Law, 1994). The principle focuses on the processes and practices that form ―collective‖ and network consolidation (Johannesson, 2005; Latour, 2005; Law, 1992; Murdoch, 1997). Consequently, the theory inspects the motivations and practices of human which require non-human actors to achieve their goal (Latour, 2005).

ANT provides a useful framework for the empirical analysis of the social constructing process. It provides a perspective to view the process that translates spatial relations to complex networks (Murdoch, 1998). This means that ANT gives an explanation on the stabilization of networks of human and non-human actors, and how power relations are constructed (Whittle and Spicer, 2008). The theory also provides the way to look at those dualisms, such as nature/society, action/structure, and local/ global (Murdoch, 1998: p. 357).

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2.2.1 Actor-Network and tourism configuration Van der Duim (2005) re-conceptualized tourism by incorporating with the Actor-Network Theory and focusing on the way that tourism is organized and performed. He introduced the concept called ―tourismscapes‘ or called ‗tourism configuration‘ in this research. Tourismscapes are ‗‗actor-networks connecting, within and across different societies and regions, transport- systems, accommodation and facilities, resources, environments, technologies, as well as, people and organizations‘‘ (Van der Duim, 2007, p. 967). In this concept, tourism is considered as networks or hybrid collectives with an ongoing process of ordering. To create tourism in any destination, three components are required: human actors (tourists, entrepreneurs, organizations, the state), non-human entities or tourism spaces shaped by natural and cultural objects (mountains, temples, guest houses, bars and so on), and networking or interactions (Van Der Duim 2005). In ANT perspective, tourism configuration should be focused through actors‘ practices and process that creating tourism configuration. ANT provides two frameworks to analyze these issues called modes of ordering and translation process.

2.2.2 Modes of ordering Modes of ordering framework is an applicable tool for analyzing actors and their actions since modes of ordering are conceptualized as an expression of an actor‘s pattern of coherence, style or a systematic and continuous struggle to create an agreement within those domains that the actors perform. One performance of actor contains a range of tasks in various domains and each domain consists of many actors that perform together and each of them has its own mode of ordering. For instance of this research, a trekking tour agency has tasks in the production domain (training tour guides and other workers, preparing stuffs used in its trips, providing service to tourists, and other types of works needed in operating the trekking tour), economic domain (financial transaction with banks, tourist and workers), social and institutional domain (relationship with tour operators, other agents, hill tribe people and Tai local community) (Van der Ploeg, 2003).

Modes of ordering do not include only how focal actors link themselves with other human actors but also how they are embodied in all kinds of technologies and materials, such as media, landscapes, websites, money and vehicles. Therefore, this situation leads to the rise of actor- networks. An actor-network contains various modes of ordering interlocking in particular ways

20 and collectively definition of the obvious course of action and development opportunities. Thus, studying actor-networks is to understand how everyday practices are transmitted into wider process of social transformation. It should be mentioned that modes of ordering are just the ordering work of actors in a particular time and place, in the other words, modes of ordering change from time to time (Van Der Duim 2005).

According to Van Der Duim (2005: 113-114) and Van der Ploeg (2003:111), modes of ordering can be defined and researched at three different interconnected levels: actors‘ sets of strategic concepts and practices, reflection of the cognitive bases, and the ways of integrating between actors or translation process.

1) Modes of ordering are coherent sets of strategic concepts about the way tourism should be practiced. They are particular cultural repertories. These repertories or list of concepts in each modes of ordering form a framework of interconnected concepts in order to analyze the related empirical phenomenon and to translate it into new actions. This framework is the main factor in an actor‘s particular strategy and his decision making processes. It leads to the way how an actor assesses or gives his definition of the situation and perform in tourism configuration. In this study, the modes refer to the ways that entrepreneurs conceptualized tourism in Pai District and induced some ideas of what kind of business and business style suiting the area and tourist. 2) Modes of ordering shows particular practices: as internally and externally consistent, congruous ways of actor‘s performing, both informed by underlying definitions of the situation and providing the feedback that might modify these definitions. The practice is an expression of actor‘s modes of ordering as the traditional ways of doing as well as informal emotional reaction. These practices also reflect actor‘s perspective of their goal or their definition of wealth. In dynamics terms, modes of ordering represent actor‘s idea about a particular way to develop their business. 3) Modes of ordering reflect the particular ways that actor use to integrate with other projects or other modes of ordering. Modes of ordering are a particular interweaving of divergent project or way of creating networks. The modes cover a systematic and constant attempt to create congruence at individual level, but above all, between the

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various levels. In the other words, they lead to the tactics of translation, or the ways that entrepreneurs connect with their partners and any non-human actors in order to set up their businesses.

2.2.3 Translation Process Translation, in ANT vocabulary, refers to the process of creating a temporary social order, or the transformation from one thing to another, through changes in the alignment of interests in a network (Law, 1992; Sarker et al., 2006). It is a triangular operation involving a translator (a person or a translation machine), something that is translated, and a medium in which that translation is inscribed (Callon, 1991, p. 143; Latour, 1986). This process follows the appearance of any new ideas from a translator. Then a translator, as a focal actor, uses a medium to transform a thing (which could be a person, an object, or an idea) by defining, establishing and stabilizing its connections with others in order to construct network arrangement (Latour, 1986; Van der Duim, 2005). Translation builds actor-networks from entities. It attaches characteristics to them and establishes more or less stable relationships between them (Callon, 1986 in Van der Duim, 2005: 94). Translation refers to the processes of negotiation, representation and displacement between actors, entities and places. It involves the redefinition of tourist destination so that the tourists are persuaded to behave in accordance with network requirements, and these redefinitions are frequently inscribed in the heterogeneous materials which act to consolidate networks (Murdoch, 1998).

According to Latour (1999), there are four types of activities used to hold actor-network in place by linking with four interdependent source of power: the technologies or techniques, political authority, allies, and public opinions. These activities were organized and placed into four moments of translation process: problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization (Latour, 1999, Van der Duim, 2005, p. 95-96).

Problematization: This moment occurs after focal actor conceptualized and defined the current situation, identities and interests of other actors that are consistent with its own interests. And then focal actor establishes itself as an essential actor who can make these interests accomplish.

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Interessement: In this moment, the focal actor builds alliance partners by persuading ones suiting for the project and rejecting those who are not. This includes activities like negotiating and presenting the images and concerns of a project to other actors. In this moment, focal actor selects its partners and non-human elements that will be used in the project. Enrolment: It is the moment that focal actor locks others into their definitions and networks. The focal actor tries to control the translation by representing the best way to manage the project. Thus, other actors‘ behaviors are controlled in the direction desired by the focal actor. Mobilization: This is the moment the translation of a network of entities which is successful. By authoritative acceptance and institutional support, all included actors have their roles and are organized to co-produce and practice in a project in order to stabilize their actor-network. To mobilize and consolidate the project, mediums that the translation inscribed are, e.g. meetings, contracts, criteria, publications, mails, money and other materials.

In this research, translation process is used in two level analyses: micro level and macro level. In the micro level: the project refers to a tourism business and a translation process is the process that focal actor uses in order to establish its business. In macro level, the study focuses on how individual networks perform together to construct tourism configuration or to transform it to a new one. The systems are normally not capable to change their functions by themselves, so it requires actors or actions existing outside the system (Young, 2010). The actors that influence changing of tourism configuration in each era are called as ‗trigger‘ in this thesis.

In macro level, problematization is the moment when focal actor has a new concept of interest in tourism or tourism configuration in a destination. Triggers are utilized by first translator as main mediums to negotiate about this tourism configuration with other actors. As an epicenter, the network formed by triggers and first translator spread their actor-network as a chain reaction to other appropriate actor-networks (interessement moment). These new networks support each other as they share the same interest and view tourism in the destination in the same direction

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(enrollment moment). Together, they form a function of new tourism configuration and give new definition to tourism destination in mobilization moment.

In conclusion, the actor-network theory suits this study‘s scheme, since the modes of ordering and translation process are used as the framework to analyze how entrepreneurs form alliances, enroll other actors, and use any materials to strengthen such alliances. Hence, this is employed as an analytical tool and create conceptual framework in this thesis.

Chapter 3 Methodology

3.1 Characteristic of the research This research can be characterized as the qualitative research paradigm. This paradigm is an investigative process where the researcher attempts to understand a social phenomenon (Miles & Huberman, 1984). It focuses on the process that is taking place and aims to explain how things occur. Therefore, the data are descriptive and reported in words rather than number (Marshall & Rossman, 1989; Merriam, 1988). Particularly, this research will use case study research design. This design is used for exploring a phenomenon bounded time and activity (a program, event, process and institution). A variety of data collection will be used in order to build explanation by looking for causal links and reasonable enlightenment. The results will be compared with theory or the literature in order to search for ―the changing patterns‖ or ‗phenomena‘ (Creswell, 1994; Merriam, 1988; Yin 1989).

3.2 Data collection The study combines several methods which are described below. 3.2.1 In order to gain fundamental knowledge about tourism development in Pai District, data is collected from reviewing literature, electronic communication (websites and blogs) and pre interview with TAT head quarter officers and a domestic tourist operator in .

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3.2.2 The interview was used as the main method for gathering data because it was the most useful form of collecting qualitative data, since it provided individuals‘ perception about their world and the way the interviewees construct the ‗reality‘ of that world (Clark et. al., 1998). The style of the interview in this research was in-depth interview, according to Veal (1997): “To seek to probe more deeply than is possible with a questionnaire-based interview. Rather than just asking a questionnaire, recording a simple answer and moving on, the in depth interviewer encourages respondents to talk, asks supplementary questions and asks respondents to explain their answers” Veal (1997: p.132).

To conduct the interviews, the author visited Pai District during the winter months of November and December 2009 which was the high season for tourism in Pai District. Former information from literature review was combined together with participation observation onsite in order to plan research sampling. Moreover, the author also used information received from previous interviewees to select the next interviewees. In conclusion, the sample for in-depth interviews could be classified as shown in figure 3. The content of interviewing followed the purpose of exploring the tourism configurations development process, and practices of actors of Pai District consisting of their concepts, actions, and relationships with other actors.

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In-depth Interview Sample (59)

Local people Tourism Government Tourists Entrepreneurs officers (3) (35) (14) (7)

Thais Foreign (2) (5)

Accommodation Activities & Town Amenity Other Businesses3 Attractions2 Businesses (4) (8) (7) (16)

Large size Restaurant & Café (2) (4)

Pub Medium size (2) (1) Souvenir Shop (5) Small size (5) Temporary Stall (5)

Figure 3: Structure of in-depth interview sampling 1 Number in parenthesis represents number of respondent. 2 Activities & Attractions businesses refers to local guides for trekking tour, local guide for eco tour, elephant camp, workers in Satichon village attraction, van tour and traditional muscle treatment 3 Other Businesses refers to tour operator, bank manager, travel agency, and an organizer for event

3.2.3 In this attempt to experience tourism businesses in Pai District conduct of informal interview was applied, two types of role plays were acted between the author and the interviewees. In the first role, the author volunteered to work in a book store in Pai town, and performed informal interviews with the customers who came to the shop. In the second role, the author acted as a tourist who participated in various tourist activities, and stayed in various types of accommodation. During the participation, the author recorded the observations by audio recorder and performed informal interviews with other tourists.

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3.2.4 The author also collected interviewing and commentary from printed material e.g. many copies of research and non-academic articles, and electronic communication (websites and blogs) as secondary data. Statistic data was also collected from various government organizations.

3.3 Data analysis To make certain of the research validity as well as strengthen reliability, triangulation or multiple methods of data collection and analysis will be used including formal and informal interview, observations and document analysis (Merriam, 1988). As the main sources, the results of the interviews were recorded by audio recorder. Most of the interview was conducted in , so it was transcribed and interpreted to English to make it easier to analyze. By using audio recorder, the author summarized data from observation and informal interview and transcribed them. According to Miles and Huberman (1994), data analysis is defined as consisting of three concurrent flows of activity: data reduction and data display. In the data reduction, the data was selected, summarized, paraphrased, and conceptualized regarding to the research‘s questions and theory. To display data, the data were organized by time ordering of the information (first era, second era, and third era of development). The data were compared and explained in the context of the actor-network perspective, translation process, and modes of ordering.

3.4 Limitations of the research There are some limitations to this research. Firstly, the author conducted interview in the third era of Pai District development. Some data could not be collect during the period of time that the author worked onsite, for example many local entrepreneurs from the first and second era had already closed their businesses, and moved out from the area. The solution of the missing data problem from this limitation was using secondary data such as interviewing and commentary from the prints and electronic communication. Secondly, there is a problem about lacking of critical tourism literature written by Thai scholars. The knowledge to explain some issues in this study, for example, the perception of Thai tourists, came from author‘s experiences as Thai citizen and analyzing from news and magazines‘ articles. Finally, the author found problems in collecting statistic data, such as data was not collected every year, data was collected in different

27 ways, there was vanished data (the aged data was lost or destroy) and some data was unorganized and only provided in hard copy.

Chapter 4: Development of Tourism Configurations in Pai District

4.1 The first tourism configuration (1980-1999): Trekking and ethnic tourism 4.1.1 Social background: Roads and Pai District development Formerly, socio-economic in Pai District was a subsistent agricultural society. People grew rice and other crops for their living more than for trade. Pai District was difficult to visit because of poor transportation access. People had to travel to Chiang Mai, the main city in northern Thailand, by horse or ox-car which took them several days to reach the destination. The first effort to create a path connecting Pai District area and other areas started in World War II. In 1940-1941, Japanese army wanted to construct a path for the Japanese soldier marching activities, so it developed caravan routes to the path that the soldier jeep could drive through. After the defeat in World War II, many Japanese soldiers died in Pai District area which led to the searching of the tomb of the Japanese ancestors of the inbound Japanese tourists later. The settlement of people started. From Lortanavanit, the Chinese Muslim from Yunnan moved down to Pai and started their grocery businesses in downtown area since 1952 (Lortanavanit, 2007; Wongtubtim, 2002).

Picture 3: Path for walking to Pai District before the road was constructed

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In 1967, Thai government developed the path to a gravel road. The construction took nine years to finish. During that time people could travel from Pai District to Chiang Mai only four month a year because of strong currents of Pai River. It might take a week for people to travel to Chiang Mai. Since the normal vehicle such as cars which could not be used for the entire whole route, people had to walk from Mae Ma Lai to Pai History Bridge). The construction completed in 1976 allowing people to travel to Chiang Mai in 6-8 hours by a jeep. However, the road conditions were not good enough to travel in rainy season. In 1980, Prempracha Company received public transport concessions running from Chiang Mai to Pai District and Mae Hong Son. It began from short distance services because of the road condition, and then extended to the whole route after the construction of highway 1095. This allowed people to travel in and out Pai district easier. Then, the highway 1095 connecting Chiang Mai –Pai District was built in 1985, and it extended to Mae Hong Son the main district in 1988. After the construction of the highway, it took only three-four hours by car to travel from Pai District to Chiang Mai or Mae Hong Son main district. The highway has improved several times to be wider and less steep which made people able to travel to Pai District faster than the past (Lortanavanit, 2007).

Picture 4: The gravel road to Pai District

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The development of the roads changed the socio-economy in Pai District from agriculture for subsistence to business agriculture. As some investors thought about possibility of development in Pai District, the first boom of the land trading in Pai District occurred around 1989-1992 which made some local people selling their land in downtown to people who wanted to start their businesses in Pai District or land trading investors from Chiang Mai, and moved to live in further area. Therefore, small businesses started to move into the area1 as same as tourism business and this increased economic level in the area. The local context started to transform into more commerce community along with the enhanced economic level in the area. Farmers began to change from cultivating rice to better economical plants, especially garlic2. Many local people worked as employees for government (there were also establishment of new government organization in the area after 1987) or new businesses in town. There were also some western tourists who married with local people, especially hill tribe people, or Thai people from other areas, and started their families and careers in town. This situation made social context more diverse and complex, however, the migrants in this period of time still tried to adjust themselves to the former local context (Lortanavanit, 2007; Wongtubtim, 2002).

In 1991-1992, the government announced the policy about issuing new title deed of land in rural area3 with condition that it could be sold after 10 years. This policy and the ‗Thai bubble economy'4 in 1990s raised the price of land all over the country including in the downtown area of Pai District. Therefore, there were some local people sold their old land in downtown area and nearby areas having a road pass through, then moved and developed new land for farming in further area from downtown (Lortanavanit, 2007; Wongtubtim, 2002).

1 There were a few big industries operated in Pai District, including mining fluoride (1964), tobacco plants (1973), cinema (1979), electronics stores (1982)/ 2 Local people cultivated in Rice, barley, garlic soy and their income was around 30,000 bath per year (Wongtubtim, 2002) 3Thai government in that time announced this policy in order to expand the development of land in rural area and boosted the economy. 4 ―From 1988 until the economic crisis in 1997, the Thai economy was prosperous, creating a large class of newly rich people. The price of land increased by 100% to 200% in a year… This condition is termed by academics a „bubble economy‟, a condition in which asset prices increase rapidly because of speculation.‖ (Petprasert, 2000) 30

4.1.2 Pai District as a stopover point for tourists Tourism business in Pai District began after the construction of the gravel road. At first, Pai District was not a pin- point as tourist destination, but as a stopover points for tour organized groups who visited Mae Hong Son, the main district and trekking tourists who trekked in forest area around Pai District (Lortanavanit, 2007; Surangkun [tour operator interview], 2009; TAT, 1986). The picture shown below illustrates a few of industrial companies in Pai and portrayed the town scenery in first era of Pai District. The pictures illustrates the business of the Pai District as described above.

Tourism in Mae Hong Son the main district and (another district in Mae Hong Son) organized mass tourists since around 1985 after there was highway 108 connecting Chiang Mai - Mae Sariang District - Mae Hong Son District which are the main districts. This road does not pass Pai District. The main type of these organized mass tourists was sightseeing tour with visitors mostly were Thai tourists, or European tourist whose ages above 30 years old. This group of tourists was interested in sightseeing of culture e.g. north architecture, hill tribe culture, temples, and natural beauty of flowers, mountain, hills and caves). These tourists preferred convenience, so they usually spent a night at luxury hotels. Thai tourists normally spent around 2-3 days on their trips and western tourists would spend more than that for a day or two. (Surangkun [tour operator interview], 2009; TAT, 1986). Mae Hong Son, the main district has the potential to accommodate these tourists because of its availability of accommodation, transportation5 and attractions. The most famous were Bua Tong flower plateau, where the flowers called Bua Tong bloomed in the first two weeks of November on the hills each year, mountain views and hill tribe villages of long neck ladies (Lortanavanit and Iwasa, 2002). At that time, Pai District was only a stopover point because the travel agencies wanted to show tourists these new sceneries on a route. Moreover, the travelling time from Mae Hong Son the main district to Chiang Mai took too much time. (The route of the organized tourists in the first era is shown in figure 5). Tourists only spent small period of time during the day to have lunch and visit the tourist attractions such as temples, thus, they did not spend the night in the area or really have time to explore the town. Pai District was not considered as a

5 The District could be reached by private car, bus or air plane which provided 75 passenger seats with 2-3 flights a day. The average numbers of people who flied to Mae Hong Son by that period of time was around 2,250 people per month (TAT, 1986). 31 major tourist destination for these tourists in that period of time because Pai District, in tourists and tour operators‘ perspectives, did not have enough attractive attractions (Surangkun [tour operator interview], 2009; TAT, 1986).

Figure4: Route of organized tours in first era (TAT, 1986)

4.1.3 Adventure tourism and its translation process Around 1980 trekking tour companies in Chiang Mai thought of the surveying for new pathways for their tours since there were too many tourists in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, and tourists wanted to explore a new destination that allows a numbers of tourists, especially the ones who already traveled in Chiang Mai who would like to go on with another attractive destinations. In order to produce tourism in this new area, they had to find new accommodations, tourist attractions, activities and routes connecting the attractions. Pai District was considered as the best place for the new route as it located next to Chiang Mai and it was full of natural and cultural attractions from various hill tribe villages. Importantly, it already had the gravel road connecting to Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son, the main district.

Downtown of Pai District was used as important stopover points because it had places to spend a night and local restaurants. Trekking tour in Pai District normally started in July to January. Trekking tour companies provided only one trip per week, and had a small group of 4 to10

32 tourists and a team (one main guide and two porters) participated in each trip. The programs were fixed because of the difficult transportation and communication (tour agencies contacted hill tribe people to arrange their plans by mail or calling local radio to make a decision to stop or continue). There were different ways to operate trekking tour program in Pai District. Normally, the program provided 5-8 days trekking as the following example.

Example of the itinerary 1 (TAT): Day 1: Travel from Chiang Mai to Pai District (by car), lunch at Pai downtown, car journey to Lisu village and walk to Karen village to spend a night. Day 2: Trek all day and spending a night at another Lisu village. Day 3: Walk to highway, by car go to Mae Hong Son, the main district , and have lunch there, go to Burma border line by boat and travel back to spend a night at Shan village. Day 4: Ride elephant and walk to Kaya village and spend a night there. Day 5: take a raft to highway and go back to Mae Hong Son the main district by car, then fly back to Chiang Ma.

Example of the itinerary 2 (May travelling): five -day trip begins from travelling to Pai District by car (private or public), trekking, bamboo rafting, riding elephant from one hill tribe village to another. The car picks up at Lod Cave on day 5 and sends tourists to air port in Mae Hong Son, the main district, to fly back to Chiang Mai.

Example of the itinerary 3 (May Travel): eight- day trip, starting from flying to Mae Hong Son, then trekking, bamboo rafting and riding elephant until reaching down town of Pai District, spending a night at Pai District and travelling back to Chiang Mai by car.

In conclusion, it can be seen that Pai District already had potentiality for trekking tourism, however, it did not transform into tourism destination until the construction of road to Pai and the vision of trekking tour agencies to create a new product 1980s. The innovation is therefore, building actor-networks, in terms of, new tourism product. The owners of trekking tour agencies, as translators, used the road to connect all attraction together, and gave opportunity for trekking tour agencies to provide their tours. The road changed dimension of time and space that made it

33 possible to extend trekking tourism business into the area. Tourists were able to move easily from one trekking site to another and did not have to walk back on the same path.

The tour guides, used Burmese or hill tribe persons who could speak English and hill tribe languages as mediums to explore the new routes in Mae Hong Son and negotiated with the hill tribe people to act in the part of the project. The participating hill tribe villages had tourism potentiality with authentic culture, ability to provide housing, foods, activities and vehicles such as bamboo rafting, elephant riding and any other things to attract tourists such as smoking of opium and cannabis cultivated by the tribe was the selling point as well. The reason of being located in the area that can connect to the road led the transportation of tourists to the other attractions. There were also some agencies contacting with police officials who office their houses as places for home stay for the tourists so that they could spend an overnight in the down town of Pai District.

By that time, hill tribe villagers and the policemen (who offered their houses for home stay) seemed not to play their important roles in tourism as their real businesses. They were enrolled into the translation process because of their personal relationship with the mediators and tourist agencies, and some benefits (money and household stuffs). By the request of the translators, hill tribe people had to prepare houses, bamboo rafts and elephants for tourists and the policemen transformed part of their houses into home stay businesses. In the other words, translators used the Burmese, hill tribe tour guides, and the road as mediums to translate hill tribe languages and their culture into tourism products, and became parts of trekking tour agencies‘ actor-networks (see figure 6). The networks were mobilized and consolidated through medium personal relationships, and in mails used in the contact between agencies and hill tribe people, and the benefit was money.

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Figure 5: Trekking tour agencies’ translation

Then results of the comparison between organized tourists and trekking tourists showed different behaviors and the usage of Pai District for their benefit was different in time and space. Trekking tourist spent more time in the down town area of Pai District or even spent a night before going back to Chiang Mai in the morning. Thus, it allowed these groups of tourist to have time to explore the town and did not have conflict with the use of organized tourists since those people only spent short period of time during a day. The success of trekking tour in Pai District6 and the benefit from the growth of tourism in Mae Hong Son, the main district, led many tourists to visit directly to Pai District. This situation supported the growth of the accommodation business in the area.

4.1.4 Explorer Tourists and Accommodation Business in Pai District At first, businesses in Pai District only operated to cover the needs of local people; even accommodation business firstly opened in order to service government officers and merchants who had business in town. Around 1981, tourism business linked to accommodation business in

6 Around 1,500 trekking tourists per year (TAT, 1986) 35

Pai District when trekking tour agency contacted local police officer for overnight accommodation. The success of business and excess demand of tourist to stay overnight in Pai District down town (before taking a public bus to Mae Hong Son main in the morning) raised the growth of accommodation business in town. Other police men and government officers who could speak English, especially teachers, were the first group who transformed their houses to home stay7.

The tourists who came to Pai District in this era were explorer types8. Normally, they were European, well educated, around 25-30 years old and had power of purchase. As Na (the restaurant and guest house owner interview in: Lortanavanit, 2007) said

―These tourists looked for new experiences, so they were interested to go watching and taking picture of lifestyle of local people and hill tribe people. They understood and accepted local condition, and tried to adapt themselves to the local context. They lived and ate like local people. They bought things without bargain or getting change”

The interview from Sancharoen (2009) who used to work in Chiang Mai trekking tour agency also supported this comment as she claimed that: “Tourists always asked a lot of questions such as what kind of this forest? What is this tree called?” Sancharoen (2009)

The tourists in the first era influenced the process of transforming local houses to home stays and also transforming local people to tourist business entrepreneurs. To solve accommodation problems, they directly contacted with local people who could speak English. They used techniques to decline the barrier between them and local people, for example they negotiated with owner of restaurant for housing after they had dinner at his/ her restaurant.

“Around 1983, there were western tourists who had dinner at my sister‟s restaurant in town and would like to find the place to spend a night because they had to wait for a next bus in the morning, so they asked us for the room. We thought that since they had dinner at our

7 Price in that time was 20 Baht per night 8 Cohen (1972) described as tourists who seek for new tourist attraction. They are open-mind and interest in culture and new experiences. 36 restaurant, so we would allow them live for free, but each of them gave us 20 Bath before they left. We saw a policeman used part of their house for tourists‟ renting, so we did the same. The tourists who already been here liked the nature and culture in town, so they came back again and lived with us” (Jun, the restaurant and guess house owner interview in: Lortanavanit, 2007)

Picture 5: Pai District town scenery in first era

Accommodation business in Pai District constantly grew along with the growth of numbers of tourists in Pai District downtown. In 1982, a small group of tourist visited Pai District almost every day and the number of day that they spent in Pai District downtown also increased. In 1985, the accommodation business developed to guest houses which offered almost 10 rooms per a house. There were three registered guest houses in Pai District in that year namely: Duang Guest House, Charlie Guest House and Nunya Guest House. All of them were operated by local teachers and government officers. In the late of first era (around 1987), it began to have small and medium entrepreneurs from outside to invest in accommodation business that made the expansion of accommodation business increased more (Lortanavanit, 2007)

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In conclusion, the problematization came as the concept to solve the problem about lacking of accommodation business since the area was just a common rural area by that time. The example from the policeman‘s home-stay business and the interaction with tourists gave the home-stay owners, as translators, an idea of business. In interessement moment and enrollment moment, the local entreprenuers contacted with tour agencies from Chiang Mai and became business alliance to each other (Lortanavanit, 2007). This relation solved problem for both because Chiang Mai agencies needed more accommodation to support the growth of tourist number and guess house owners need a constant channel to supply them a customers.

Importantly, the expense of investment to transform their house to home-stay was very low, this meant, there was low risk of the investment, since they used things that they already had to operate their businesses including house, pillows, beds, blankets and other facilities for the bed rooms. The numbers of exploring tourists were pressures that helped translators to transform their houses to home-stay. As the business was built in from the understanding of the local context from tourists that Pai District was a virgin tourism destination, their demand for service was low. They lived in local context and had low demand in tourism service. This situation allowed local people who did not have any experiences in tourism business to be able to operate their accommodation. And when the numbers of the tourists, who were the pressures of mobilizing and consolidating of the project, grew, it encouraged the home-stay owners to develop their businesses into guest houses.

4.1.5 The rise of local trekking tour business Trekking tourism businesses which operated by local people began as the extended products from accommodation business. At first, the accommodation owners provided a short trek in area nearby downtown as a special service. ‗Buffalo View home-stay‘ owned by one police man was the first one who provided this kind of service which made them became popular. Jun, Daung Guest House owner, also provided the same service when she operated her guest house.

―I thought about how to make tourists stay longer, so I took them to visit Lisu hill tribe village and other short trekking routes nearby‖ (Interview in: Lortanavanit, 2007).

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Later, Jun became the translator for local trekking tour business in 1985. This project acted as an innovation for trekking tour business in term of changing the down town of Pai District from being just a stop point to be the basement that produced trekking tours by itself.

The entrepreneurs used the same scheme as the program provided trekking agencies from Chiang Mai with four main activities: trekking, visiting hill tribe villages, bamboo rafting, and elephant riding. Jun negotiated with the diverse groups of local people to form her trekking business. The tour guides were the local people who were former porters trained by Burma tour guides when they worked together for Chiang Mai trekking tour agencies. She trained the young local people to work as guide, she declared ―Porters taught from opening dictionary and jobs like preparing stuffs for tourists‖. Hill tribe villages which participated in the project were the ones that she already had personal relations. ―Lisu (one of hill tribe clan) people were also happy because they could sell their handicrafts like bags and wristband.‖

For elephant riding and bamboo rafting, she took the tourists to the local elephant camp, which also established in 1985 (see the translation process of this business in next issue), and used the service there to complete her project. The enrollment was success through the experiences that they had with Chiang Mai trekking tour agencies; even they had a few problems such as the local tour guides had poor English communication. Personal relationships in local community played as the main medium to mobilizing and consolidating the project. ―The local community relation by that time was tide. Everyone knew each other.‖ (Sancharoen, a travel agency who used to work in Chiang Mai trekking tour interview, 2009).

I also assumed from Jun real job as the teacher gave her the position to easily negotiate with other actors. As a result, the early local trekking tour appeared as a 2-3 day program. It started from trekking into the forest at Sai Ngam Village, visiting and staying overnight at Lisu hill tribe villages, then went to elephant camp and rafted from there back to downtown area. Later, trekking tourism in Pai District incessantly flourished. Other local people also began their own trekking tour businesses. The new trials were created including the famous one called

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‗NO MERCY TREK‘ (only trekking without bamboo rafting and riding elephant for 7 days).

4.1.6 Adventure tourism business in Pai District In first era of tourism development in Pai District, tourists were the explorer type who liked adventure activities. Therefore, few years after tourism started to connect with Pai District in 1981, there were a few adventure tourism businesses which began to operate in the area. The first one was Thom‘s Pai elephant camp. According to the interview (2009), Thom‘s family already ran business relating to elephant in Pai District for a long time, as she said

―Before the law announced that catching wide elephants was against the law, Pai District was the area that was around with many wide elephants, and our family business was taking the wild elephant from the nearby forest, then training them for work in transportation and pulling logs and timbers in the wood cutting business.‖

Thom conceptualized tourism situation in Pai District as an opportunity for her business and began to train her elephants for showing business for tourists. The idea was not so new since there were some places in Thailand providing this kind of show. However, after she had an interaction with the tourists, she realized that tourists wanted more adventurous activities. Thus, in 1985 she established Thom‘s Pai elephant camp providing elephant riding, bamboo rafting, and trekking activities but it differed from general trekking business in that time since tourists were able to choose to do only activities that they wanted to (the activities were not always wrapped up as a program). Thom did not connect her business with any tour agencies by that time as she said

―Our visitors were a walk-in customers. We did not have any business contract with other tour agencies. The only thing that we did was to put some advertisement poster in town and guest houses. Our camp is located9 between town and hot spring place10, which was one of the favorite

9 From the author observation (2009), the camp was located on the side of the main internal road that connects sub districts in Pai District together. 40 tourists‟ activities, so they recognized our business. Importantly, after the tourist guide introduced us in the books, we became very well known for tourists.‖

Picture 6: Bamboo rafting in Pai River Picture 7: Elephant riding in Pai District 11

Thus, it can be seen that type of tourists was the key thing affecting translators‘ modes of ordering. It gave the direction of how business should be defined and operated. The network that transformed elephant camp for wood dragging to elephant camp for tourism (camp and elephants were the translated things) was not so complicated. In 1980s, Government policy that focused on development of infrastructure in rural area was important, since it constructed the internal district road linking sub- districts in Pai District area together and allowed tourists to travel to other attractions in Pai District such as elephant camp and hot spring puddle. Together with advertisement posters and tourist guide books, these materials acted as mediums that mobilized and consolidating the project. Moreover, Kee, the French who married Thai woman, also started his adventure tourism business in Pai District in 1986 providing rubber boats rafting and mountain biking (Lortanavanit, 2007). Tourism Authority of Thailand also provided bamboo rafting activity in that period (TAT, 1986).

10 Hot spring in Pai District was built in 1983 for the use of local people, but it became one of the most attractive activities for western back packers (Pirazzi interview, 2009; Lortanavanit, 2007). 11 Source: http://www.thomelephant.com 41

Picture 8: Pai Hot spring12

4.1.7 Conclusion In destination level, translation process had transformed non-tourism existing area to a tourism destination by constructing heterogeneous networks in the area. Road acted as trigger for tourism development in the first era. It changed space dimension of Pai District by connecting Pai District with already existed tourist destination e.g. Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son the main district. It was used as medium for translators such as owners of trekking tour agencies from Chiang Mai to operate their businesses in Pai District. More importantly, it allowed translators, the explorer tourists, to enter to Pai town and they were able to negotiate with local people to translate their houses into tourist home-stay business.

There were two types of tourists, organized mass tourists and explorer tourists, who came to visit Pai District in this era. Both of them conceptualized Pai District as a ‗virgin‘ destination, but their different modes of ordering separated their definitions of the situations and their performances. The organized mass tourist groups defined Pai District as non-interested destination that had a few sightseeing attractions, and did not focus Pai District as the main destination. On the other hand, the explorer tourists saw Pai District as the destination that

12 Source: http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/Thailand/Northern_Thailand/Pai-1444934/Tourist_Traps-Pai- BR-1.html 42 provided authentic culture and nature. Therefore, these two types of tourists had different practices while they were in the destination. The first left after having their break or lunch, but the latter tried to stay longer and created relations with local people. Moreover, the number of organized tourist groups was higher and had more power of purchasing than explorer tourist group. Therefore, tourism development and promotion policy of government focused on Mae Hong Son, the main district, more than Pai District, Thus, Pai District was translated by relations between explorer tourists and local people only.

It can be concluded that the perception of explorer tourists about Pai District and their interactions with local entrepreneurs were important forces affecting entrepreneurs‘ modes of ordering, since local entrepreneurs were allowed to operate the business within their potentiality which included their houses and low English language communication, this encouraged the local entrepreneur to develop their business as Jun said:

“After I took tourists in a short trek to Lisu village (she referred to the service she provided to customers in her home-stay business), I felt success and thought that I was able to do it. So, I took them to other short trekking routes and established the trekking tour business in 1985.”

In this era, there were only three kinds of business (trekking, adventure activities and accommodation) suited for explorer tourists and were selected to operate. The role of these three types of business supported each other in the facilities of accommodation and things to do. It should be emphasized that the achievement of construction tourism configuration in Pai District came because of the main mediums, road and public transportation, which allowed tourists to visit Pai town even by themselves and was able to conduct continuous relations with local entrepreneurs. As a result, it started to have a small group of foreign backpackers (2-3 people with small amount of money) and group of motorcycle adventure tourists to visit Pai town almost every day in 1987 and grew into the mature stage during 1991-1992.

The local restaurants that used to only provide local food for local people modified themselves to serve western style food for the tourist as well. The first restaurant served for tourist called ‗own

43 home‘ which was opened by an outside investor in 1987, then fellow by other local restaurants, such as ‗Nong Beer‘, ‗Nu Na‘ and ‗Daung‘. In 1990, the first pub selling alcohol drink for tourist called ‗Blue Mountain‘, also operated by small outside entrepreneur, was opened. In this period of time, the local restaurants gain a lot of profit because there were only few restaurants in town and they had both foreign customers and Thais who stop over on the way to Mae Hong Son13. As consequence of the development, there were many backpackers came to during its high season (September – January) and some of them stayed for 2-3 months.

Figure 6: Map of Pai District tourism business in the 1990

13 Tourism in Mae Hong Son main district fully growth in 1988-1992 before started to decline in 1993. 44

4.2 The Second Tourism Configuration (1995 - Present): Heaven for Backpackers (UTOPAI)14 To explain translation process of tourism configuration in this era, firstly; the main mediums in translation playing important role in conceptualizing of Pai District tourism in this era are introduced. This introduction covered tourist guide books, drug, and bamboo guest houses. These three materials were the results of tourism producing in the first era. They were important in problematization moment since they provided particular cultural repertories of Pai District in this era, and affected entrepreneurs‘ modes of ordering or their strategic concepts about the way tourism should have been followed. Then, in terms of, interessement moment and enrollment moment, the rise and fall of various tourism businesses as the consequence of new tourism concept are clarified. Finally; summary on how tourists, entrepreneurs, and non- human materials consolidated their relations and contributed tourism configuration in this era are wrapped up.

Picture 9: Scenery in downtown of Pai District area in 199815

14 Applied from word ‗Utopia‘ and referred to tourists‘ perspective about tourism configuration in Pai District in late 1990s 15 post card from Sabaidee Gallery Shop 45

4.2.1 Tourist guide books and backpackers Pai District has grown its reputation among foreign tourism since it was in the tourist guide books (the first and most impact one was Lonely Planet) in the late 1980s and the recommendation by words of mouth among the tourists as well. This situation made local trekking tour grew to its highest point in the beginning of this era (around 1991-1995) along with the growth of accommodation and restaurant businesses in town. Named in the guidebooks as the tourist destination significantly affected relationships in the destination as it was claimed by Bhattacharyya (1977, P. 372) ―It mediates the relationship between tourists and destinations, as well as the relationship between hosts and guests‖.

The guidebooks provide a cognitive framework for the tourists to perceive places and for interpreting what one perceives. The books shape the images of the destinations through both sights selection and information provision and the interpretation of the situation in the destinations, for example:

“It first appears that there‟s not a lot to see in Pai. But if you stick around a few days and talk to some of the locals, you may discover some beautiful spots in surrounding hills. … Attracted by easy living and a small live music scene, Pai nowadays also features a sizeable collection of long term visitors – mostly farang16 and Japanese- who use the town as a place to chill out between excursions elsewhere in Asia.” Definition of Pai District in the Lonely Planet (Cummings et al., 2003)

Tourists' guidebooks were designed to be used at the sites of travel, so they were created to be more practical, 'objective', and standardized in order to decrease uncertainty for tourists (Koshar, 1998). In other words, tourist agencies were reduced their power and became less important. Guidebooks stimulated more numbers of tourists and allowed tourists, who have less adventurous behaviors than explorer type, to visit Pai town. Therefore, there had been high numbers of foreign backpackers and some tourists who began to stay for a long term (1-3 months) in Pai since early 1990s.

16 Farang is a Thai slang word meaning ‗foreign or western people‘ 46

Guidebooks provides guidelines for tourist behaviors, they increase the tourists‘ self-sufficient ability and reduce tourists‘ dependence on local people (Bhattacharyya, 1977). According to the author‘s interview (Liz, Henry and Pierre, 2009), foreign tourists searched information about Pai District from other foreign tourists, guidebooks, websites, and people who work in tourism businesses like motorcycle renting agencies which also provide Pai District maps, guest house, restaurants and pubs.

4.2.2 Drug and tourism in second era Drug situation in Pai District was complicated and affected development of tourism in Pai District in both direct and indirect ways. Hill tribe people have cultivated drug plants, mostly opium and some marijuana for their personal use and sold to drug dealers in Shan State for a long time, but this purchasing of drugs had not been distributed around Pai District in the first era. Drug connected to trekking tour as a byproduct experience for the tourists while they stayed in hill tribe villages. Jun and Na, the guest house owners (interview in Lortanavanit, 2007, p. 168), in this period said ―Experiencing in drug was a part of a selling point of trekking tour in Pai District.‖

Reputation about drug in Pai District attracted new types of tourists into the area such as hippies17. Demand and supply played along well while marijuana was broadly distributed among tourist in Pai District in the second era since it was told by the workers for local van tour called Khokthi (interview, 2009) ―In the past (referring to the second era), many tourists came here to smoke marijuana.‖

The words of mouth telling about the experiences of living in bamboo huts and smoking marijuana became parts of entities of tourism in Pai District that attracted more and more dope smokers to visit the place in the second era. Moreover, from an informal interview with a German girl tourist in a pub in 2009, she also asked the interviewer about the place where she could get marijuana. At this point, it was proved that the strong image about drug tourism in Pai District is still lingered on the place.

17 http://www.1stopchiangmai.com/backpackers/pai/ (accessed in 20/07/2010) 47

4.2.3 Bamboo house and accommodation in Pai District in the second era After 1987, there were outside entrepreneurs who rented or bought some land from local people to invest for guest houses business in downtown and other places including hilly area in other sub- districts near the downtown and internal road, and also close to the Pai river, especially in riverside area of Pa Kam Village which is a part of downtown area. At first, these entrepreneurs normally came from Chiang Mai and other area in northern part of Thailand, but later there were also people from all parts of the country who came to start their businesses in Pai.

The outside investors contributed the next level of accommodation business development in Pai District. Local people normally had three main problems: lack of money for investment, lack of knowledge in English and communication skill, and lack of business experience. Comparing to local people, the outside entrepreneurs had more potential for business and had different visions from local people in viewing and conceptualizing tourism and destination. For example, the riverside area of Pa Kam Village used to be non-value space because it always had flood problem and being the trash dumping area, however, the outsider investors thought the place has a nice landscape where people could see mountain and listen to the sound of river flow (Lortanavanit, 2007). So, they transformed that area into guest houses. The style of guest houses linked with local architecture and tourists‘ perception on Pai District, since they were built with bamboo, grass Tong Teung leaves which were from tropical tree called Gloriosa Superba L., and the type of grass called ‗Yaa Khaa‘ in Thai. This style of guest houses are cheap for construction, suited to local culture and nature, and also provided satisfaction for tourists who wanted to change from their normal life in town to experience the rural lifestyle and be close to the nature. This style of guest house was very interesting and popular for backpackers. It can be seen that material such as bamboo guest houses became the representative of Pai District and provided the definition of living in Pai District which mean to live close to nature18. In contrast, in 1991 there was a 40 rooms standard hotel called ‗View Pai‘ built by concrete that was not succeeded in business since it could not match with tourists‘ perception on the destination. In the late of this era (between 2000 and 2005), the number of accommodation in Pai District had rapidly

18 The author had lack of information to provide deeper in these entrepreneurs‘ modes of ordering and their translation process because they sold their businesses to other investors since around 1999-2001 (the land that own by outside investors, especially in down town area, had been sold several times since 1999 to present time or 2009) 48 increased, but it related to translation process in the third era. Therefore, I provided the explanation all about it together in the third era section.

Picture 10-11: Example of bamboo guest house19

4.2.4 Motivation and perception of Pai from foreign backpackers The influence from the materials like guidebook, drug, and bamboo guest houses provided strong tourism destination image for Pai District. They attracted various types of backpackers to Pai District, as Cohen (1972)‘s tourist typology claimed they were something between explorer type and individual mass tourism type. Thus, it is also important to understand their motivation of visiting Pai District. The main motivations were ‗the need to escape‘, ‗the desire to pleasure‘, and ‗ontological security‘. These motivations represent in terms of their expectation about tourism in Pai District as ‗relaxing in natural landscape‘, ‗an experience of ―real‖ culture: e.g. its architecture, food, and folklore‘. However, tourists do not want to experience the real physical hardships of the traditional village, for example they like to watch people work on agriculture farm but does not mean they want to it by themselves or became real local people. They still wished for ‗having a good time without anyone bothers‘, ‗getting friendship from both local

19 Source: http://allaboutpai.com/intro/#toron 49 people and other traveler‘, and ‗consuming Cheapness‘. These expectations of backpackers were expressed as:

―I am quite happy with this balance between Thai cultures and those with which I am more familiar”

Pirazzi20

―It is a great place to relax in a day, just reading a book or taking a motorbike to the waterfall, and enjoying music at night‖

Pierre (interview, 2009)

―There's not much to do in Pai really, all the activities are taking place around town like trekking, waterfalls... same same as Mae Hong Son but better. So since I've done all that and I felt a little lazy I decided to try the thing most of people do in Pai: nothing. It works!”

Tonypop21

―Pai became a picturesque community of backpackers, strumming guitars, smoking hand rolled cigarettes whilst sharing travel stories and watching the river pass by from our patios‖.

Lisa-ashley 22

4.2.5 Growth of tourism businesses for foreign backpackers Development of business in this era had been dominated by western tourist‘s demand. At the first half of this era, most tourism businesses in Pai District were still operated by local people. Numbers of tourism businesses owned by non-local entrepreneurs have increased because Pai became more famous. Tourism business in this era is still a small and medium businesses that reciprocated western tourist lifestyle businesses, such as Western style dishes, automobile renting service, tattoo, guest houses, bar, boxing training, traditional treatment and massage, Thai

20 http://allaboutpai.com/intro/#toron 21 http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog- entries/tonypop/.html 22 http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa-shley/world_partner/1156229880/tpod.html: 20th July 2006 50 cooking course, souvenir shop and internet café. In relation to entrepreneurs‘ modes of ordering, these businesses can be divided into three categories.

1) Local people group After the number of tourists had grown, local businesses, which mostly were about food and restaurant, had focused more on tourists and started to adapt their businesses to serve tourists‘ demand. In the other words, the relationship between entrepreneurs and tourists stimulated growth and development of these businesses. As Aoi (interview, 2009) said:

―Firstly, I sold few types of desserts mainly for local people. But, later my main customer turned to be tourists, so I began to expand types of my product and made them be more bakery style, especially breads.”

Sometimes, this type of business can be part time job for the local people. As claimed by local person (Wanta, interview, 2009) “I work at local government organization and I do the laundry for tourist in my free time” The practices of these entrepreneurs in their tourism businesses can be conceptualized as ‗Playing along with tourist demand‘ For example, when the new types of tourists who lived in longer period began to find the ways to reduce their daily expense, these entrepreneurs adopt themselves to serve that.

―Tourists did not have a meal at restaurants all the time. They bought fresh food to cook by themselves, so I began to order fresh food, such as meat, sausage, and ingredients, and then we developed our shop(s) to minimart(s) selling these kinds of stuff.” Aoi (Interview, 2009)

2) Former tourist group After 1995, there were Thai and foreign tourists who were attracted by the destination and wanted to live in Pai District permanently. Although high profit was not the main objective of this group but they also needed income to be able to live in the area.

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―Money is not the main purpose; I received more incomes when I worked in Bangkok, but I dreamed for a long time to live in somewhere not Bangkok.‖ Jub, Mu shop owner (interview, 2009)

They were not familiar with working in government organization or in agricultural business, so they started their own small businesses that suited with skill. Their skills and their visions differed from local people. Their business can be conceptualized as ‗business for living costs‘. To operate their businesses, they built relations with local people by living as long term or being repeated tourists, therefore they could find ones who help them find the land and labors to construct their shops. Their businesses had not been much profitable in the second era because normally tourists came to Pai District only four months a year (between September to February) because the other months are too rainy or too hot to do outdoor activities, but they and their businesses could live through low expense and cost of living in Pai District.

Creative group They were of former tourist group who had more creativity and art skills than others. Their perception via Pai District and their art creativities brought their business looked more fascinated than formal businesses ran by local or simple S.M.E. These people were young Thai middle class people who used to study or work in art field, and there were also skillful foreign tourists, such as a chef from France. Their main motivations were breaking away from metro city lifestyle. Their businesses in Pai related to their interests and skills, such as café (that also show and sell their drawing), souvenir shops, pubs and pizza restaurants.

―I graduated in art field and like to take a photo and draw a picture, so I thought that it suit with souvenir career‖ Sabaidee shop owner (interview, 2009)

―I and my friends like to play music and we thought that it would be nice to have a place that we could play regularly‖ Pai Post Bar owner (interview, 2009)

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Picture 12: Souvenir shop in Pai District

These businesses created new value that combined their skill and their interpretation of Pai District and tourism here, such as transforming traditional wood house into café, pub, guest house and souvenir shop, and making souvenirs that represent Pai District characteristic in art style. Among all, the most outstanding business for western tourists in second was pubs as they played Blues, Jazz, Funk, and Reggae music. This new value became new image of Pai District tourism configuration that was renowned to backpackers.

―Instead it‟s a little corner of the world that happens to be in Thailand that seems to attract artists, musicians and foodies. It‟s got a live-music scene you won‟t find anywhere else, and some affordable modern art and a delicious range of international culinary treats.‖ The lonely planet (2009) 23

23 http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thailand/mae-hong-son-province/pai 53

This new value was found again in the beginning of the third era by Thai people who worked in movie industry. But, the new value was conceptualized in a new way and embodied with new translation process and became an important entity of destination for Thai tourist in the third era.

Picture 13: Pub in Pai District24

3) Transferring tourism business group This group of entrepreneurs was the group that followed their customers, backpackers, to Pai District, such as pubs (play dance, reggae and other beach music), tattoo shops, motorcycle renting or even travel agency. Their concepts went straight to serve needs of tourists, especially the ones who looked for beach style entertainment, therefore, their businesses based on backpacker behavior more than local context of destination and they concentrate more on building relations with tourists than local people. The number of this type of entrepreneurs started to increase after their businesses suffered from tsunami disaster in the in 2000, which also the same period of time that Pai District was already well known for backpackers. The practice that response to their concept of tourism in Pai District was that some

24 Source of picture: http://pentax.niceeyeshot.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=105501 54 of them operated the businesses only in four months of high season and went the other place or back to the south in the rest of the year.

4.2.6 The fall of Local Trekking Tour Trekking tourism in Pai District started to decline after 1999 because changes in both hill tribe villages and tourists wear down the networks that built this business. According to Lortanavanit (2007) and Sancharoen (Travel agency interview, 2009), the hill tribe villages nearby Pai District had changed through economic, transportation and communication development in the area. Their lifestyle became closer to modern lifestyle, such as having electricity, television, and house architecture. Thus, the quality in term of trekking tour was drop and decreased impression of tourists because they wanted to see something more under developed. This situation made the incentive explorer tourists left Pai District and went to the new emerging trekking destination in the former socialism countries, such as Laos and Vietnam. Thus, the type of tourist was changed as they became less adventurous behavior.

―Former tourists were well prepared for trekking. They had all equipment, even bought new ones. But, nowadays there was even a tourist who came and asked something like could they wear slippers for trekking. Trekking tour in Pai District was not a major activity providing extreme excitement or major reason that tourists came here anymore. It became just an activity that tourists can do while they stay in there. Sancharoen (travel agency interview, 2009)

The new type of tourist was more attracted on diverse activities providing in this era, such as Thai boxing training, yoga, cooking course or night life activities. The Development of internal road directly linking Pai town to hill tribe villages and other natural attractions, such as the water falls, hot spring, and canyon, allowed tourists be able to go to these attractions by themselves. Thus an importance of trekking guide role was decreased and many tourists do not use guide in order to reduce their expense.

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―The long trekking (7 days) was not good anymore because tourists might feel ridiculous that they had a hard time of few days trekking to the Lod Cave and saw it was crowded by other tourists who came by their own motorbike or came with the van tour‖ Khokthi (the van tour driver interview, 2009)

The government policy also affected as the national park in Pai Districted collected 200 bath for each foreign tourist in 2003 – 2004 which made The price of trekking tour in Pai District increased and became too expensive comparing with trekking in Chiang Mai.

Therefore, it can be seen that the material like road destroyed the power of local trekking entrepreneurs to keep their networks in shape. It was good for the entrepreneurs when it only connected tourists from other destinations to the basement in Pai town, but it was bad for them when the road kept developing until reaching the attractions which allow other actors to use road as the medium to make the relations with attractions by themselves. Since 2004, trekking tours in Pai District have operated only a day tour or 2-3 days tour (stay one night in hill tribe village and the other night in the forest).

“The reputation of trekking tour in Pai District was already well known in the market. People still come to Pai District for trekking especially before the high season. Tour guides have to take them to the villages that still do not get effect from development too much, for example I operate a three days trip by taking them to the Sgaw Karen village (different hill tribe from the one that trekking tour usually took tourist to in first era called Lisu)” Punwa (local trekking guide interview, 2009)

4.2.7 Conclusion Guidebook was the trigger or main material that changed the way that tourists and outside entrepreneurs conceptualized about Pai District. It distorted Pai District meaning as virgin destination where tourist could have excitement of discovery and provided more comfortable and convenient situation to tourists. Therefore, social structure in this era was changed from first era: local businesses provide more services serving tourists, and tourists reduced their dependent relations on local people and created more relations among themselves. New destination image

56 in the second era was guided by guidebooks as a tourist destination that had cheap cost of living, beautiful nature and landscape, specific local arts and culture, nice local people (peaceful and do not disturb tourists enjoyment) along with the necessary infrastructure. Therefore, the main tourists in this era were foreign backpackers and hippies who enjoin relaxed atmosphere in town, drug, and natural attractions and activities nearby. There were also increasing number of aged tourists who used Pai District as their second home and ‗sun sand sea sex‘ tourist who looked for the extreme entertainment in Pai District.

As backpacker gained more power and became focal actor in translation process of this era, the new businesses matching with their behaviors, such as pubs, motorbike renting service, international foods, café, souvenir shop and cooking course, were selected to be placed in new tourism configuration. Backpackers locked these businesses into their networks and definition of Pai District by representing the best way to operate businesses in Pai was making it in theme of relaxation and enjoyment.

Guidebooks and information technology, such as internet and telephone acted as mediums to mobilize and consolidate entrepreneurs‘ business networks. In general, continuously being named in guidebooks and informing by tourists through information technology brought customers to businesses in the area.

―In 2003, there were a lot of guest houses. The ones operated by local people, who did not have business knowledge, business connection or being name in guidebooks, were hardly to be successful‖ Tayai Guest House manager (interview, 2009)

―We have customers all the time. Part of it because Mr. Amido has a lot of friends and they came visit him every year‖ Amido‘s Pizza Garden partnership owner (interview, 2009)

However, as a result of achievement in new tourism configuration establishing, it started to have conflict between tourism and local people in downtown area. Tourists paid more attention on

57 night life activities such as organizing parties and staying in pubs until the late of the night or even until morning which contrasted to rural people lifestyle that sleeps early in the night and wake up early in the morning. The different behaviors caused problems for both sides. The noise from tourist night activities made local people had a hard time for sleeping and the noise from morning activities, such as singing national song (it is a tradition in Thai that students sing a national song together at school at 8 am.) and chanting of local monks (it is also a tradition in rural area that in Buddhist Sabbath day, which has 4 days per month, the monks would broadcast through amplifier around the local town in the early morning).

―The Japanese hippies said that they like Pai District because it quite, so I did not understand why they arrange the fool moon party‖ Ron, Guest house owner (interview in: Lortanavanit, 2007)

―The worst group was Israel tourists. They thought that they already paid the money, so they can do anything that day want. They got drunk and shout the whole night‖ Tayai Guest House manager (interview, 2009)

This conflict expressed through practices of both sides, such as the local people threw the rock into the full moon parties and tourists complained to the guest house owners about the noise. This problem also pointed to the Thai politic problem as the police officer (interview, 2009) expressed

―The guest houses were wrong from the first place. They could not build the guest houses close to public space like school or temple. But, even they were out law guest houses; we could not take a serious action like closing them down because sometime these people had a connection with powerful politic people. And normally we did not want to have a problem with tourists because we afraid it will affect to the tourism image‖

In conclusion, the noise pollution became one reason that local people sold their land in town area and moved to live in further area from town.

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―It cannot deny that huge amount of money from outside investors attracted people to sell their land, but it should be accepted also that tourism made it hard for local people to live in town area.‖ Visitchotangkun, local people (interview, 2009)

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Figure 7-8: Map of tourism business in Pai District in 2007

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4.3 The third tourism configuration (2006 - present): Romantic destination The downtown of Pai District completely changed to tourism town since the early 2000s. It hardly saw normal resident who did not have any business and still lived in downtown area. Since the late of second era tourist types had become more various and had more number of private mass tourists (both foreign and Thais) in the area. The growth and changing in Pai District tourism configuration had gradually occurred since 1999 but Pai District was developed into significantly important and nationwide tourist destinations after the broadcast of movies and media after 2006.

To explain translation process of tourism configuration in this period, two main materials which produced change in tourism configuration: government policies, and Thai movies and mass media, which produced changing forces to tourism configuration will be introduced first. Then, I will explain how tourism businesses inserted themselves into new tourism concept. Finally, the summary of tourism configuration of this era is provided.

Picture 14: Scenery of Pai town in 2009

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4.3.1 Government’s policies Since the late of second era, there were actions from national government and local government derived from their policies affected tourism configuration in Pai District. Both intentional and unintentional actions created effects in term of driving hippies out of the area and attracting more on mass tourists and upper class tourists.

Drug policy At first, this policy did not involve with tourism but it related drugs history in Pai District. Bunlaw (Head of the Santichon Village interview, 2009) claimed that there were new Chinese people migrated to the Santichon Village around 1989 for Litchi (name of fruit) cultivation. However, these people knew drug producers in golden triangle area and became drug dealers of amphetamine in 1990s. They used Santichon Village or K.M.T Village25 (the place where the free Chinese moved down to settle with the Thai government permission) as the stop- point of drug trading and created drug problems not only in Pai District area but also the whole country. The high profit of drug dealing also made other hill tribe people such as those who lived in Lisu Villages moved into this business. The situation was more serious in the late 1990s and many areas in Pai District became warning zones including Santichon Village. Nevertheless, it did not affect the increasing numbers of tourists in town. In fact, Jun (the guess house owner) declared that there were foreign tourists who also used opium and amphetamine pills.

In 2003, Taksin Shinawatra, the ex-prime minister of Thailand, announced a policy ‗War on Drugs‘26 to all the places in Thailand including Pai District which was one of the main targets because it was well known as drug stopover point (Bunlaw interview, 2009). The issue began to relate with tourism in the area since the targets of the police were not only drug dealers, but also the users including the dope smoker tourists. Guest houses and bars in Pai District were searched by the police as the main locations for drug consuming.

25 Santichon Village was introduced in tourist guide books in the name of ‗K.T.M. Village‘ which came from ‗Kok Min Tang Village‘ 26 ‗War on Drugs‘ launched by the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The police seriously tracked down suspected drug criminals. More than 2,000 people in Thailand were killed during this period because of this policy. (Human Rights Watch report on Thailand's 2003 "War on Drugs" in http://www.hrw.org/reports/ 2004/thailand 0704/4.htm, accessed in 8 July 2010) 62

―The policemen sometimes conducted random-urine tests in bars and arrest tourists for possession of drugs, locking them up for a few days before releasing them upon remittance of a „fine‟ that is usually more than 10,000 baht”.27

This policy was effective in order to remove appearance of drugs in Pai District. On the contrary the actions of the government were considered unlawful treats and these affected the feeling of many backpackers who stayed in Pai District in the second era. However, tourists still could find marijuana in Pai District if they knew how to search and dope smoking had to do in private space. (Pirazzi, interview in 2009 and his website28 in 2010).

Transformation of drug village to tourist attraction The researcher would like to dedicate this section as a case study of good cooperate between the state and local community can create the innovation that use tourism as an instrument to improve livelihood of community. In 2004, after the first stage of ‗War on Drugs‘ policy achieved by clearing the main drug dealers out of the area, to ensure that there would be drug problems in the area again, government tried to help people in Santichon Village to raise their incomes by taking the community boards to see possible projects that could be created.

―I got an idea when I visited a site in the other Chinese villages and saw tourists came to have their food there. I thought that Pai District has enough tourist destinations, so it is possible to transform our village to an attraction by using our Yunnan Chinese culture as an attractiveness‖ Bunlaw, Head of the Santichon village (interview, 2009)

Bunlaw used the community meeting to gather an idea for what culture could be commoditized into tourism products. They decided to open the Chinese restaurant and market to sell their agriculture products and souvenirs.

27 http://www.1stopchiangmai.com/backpackers/pai/ (accessed in 20 July 2010) 28 http://allaboutpai.com/intro/#toron 63

“We did not open the home stay or guest house because we wanted to build partnership with guest houses and resorts in town. They could help us by promoting and recommending about our village while we created an activity for their customers”

Picture 15-16: Sontichon Village29

29 Picture 15 Source: http://www.bloggang.com/viewdiary.php?id=travelsomewhere&group=34&month=01- 2010&date=04 64

To make this project achieve, Bunlaw connected with many actors. The investment capital came from many sources including fund from Taiwan foundation that already had linkage with since 1993, government fund, Pai local government loaning, and province government loaning. There was also the government organization that helped them improve productivity of their agricultural products and souvenirs. It was the community business that could be operate by cooperate between villagers, thus, Bunlaw used his power as the head of the village to complete the project.

―At first, there was only 30% of villagers believed that our project could be successful. But, I said that I already decided and everyone had to cooperate. To make people entrust in this project, I allowed them to use my land as a place operate this project. Then, I divided people into groups and gave them their tasks. We signed a contract to keep them in position. Now, the project is very successful and I can say that there was no unemployed in our village‖

Therefore, this project was operated and the mediums, such as meeting report and work contracts, were used to consolidate their networks . Santichon Village nowadays becomes one of the main attractions in Pai District especially for mass tourist group.

An influence of government tourism promotion policies and habitat construction law In 1998-1999, government announced tourism promoting policy called ‗Amazing Thailand.‘ The main purpose of this project was to promote the tourist destinations all over the country in order to boost Thai economic. Mae Hong Son Province was named as the tourism area and the main tourist destination in Mae Hong Son Province had been promoted for tourism, especially ecotourism, which made the destination also being known for both Thai tourists and investors. Thus, when Thai economy started to recover from economic crisis (occurred in 1997 from bubble economy) in 2000, the new land speculators from all around country, especially Bangkok, came to Pai District and bought lands in Pai District. Large, medium and small entrepreneurs from outside built standard resorts, hotels and guest houses and other businesses in down town area and other sub districts around downtown (Wiangnuer, Mae He, Mae Na Taung and Toong Yaw) especially the land on the top of the hill and land on the side of Pai River. There were local people who had their own land also just came into the guest house business in the period of time. The long term guest houses serving for tourists who stay at least one month were also introduced

65 in this period of time. From 1997 to 2003, land trading increased the price of land in Pai District around 5 times. This land price was up 2 times again after Pai District had been promoted in movies and media between 2006 and 2008. Growth of tourism in town and big amount of incomes became the reasons for the local people to leave the town.

―I bought the land from local guy who operated cow farming business. He sold it because it hard to operate his business while surrounding by occupied land of business owners. (In Thai traditional farming, people take their cows to the area that has water and food, so it was hard for him to do that in this situation)‖ Pai Wiman Resort owner (interview, 2009)

Picture 17: Signs in Pai District

The flood problems in Pai District, especially the big one in 2005, provided the reason for the local government to ban on structures made with traditional natural materials such as bamboo, Tong Teung leaves and grass, and forced all houses to make from a solid material, such as wood,

66 gypsum, compressed fiber or cement. This regulation was stated to be the reason for change in scenery which opposed the backpackers‘ preserved feeling of Pai District as country side town because they did not want Pai scenery look too modern. The expense of building new structures was also a big problem for small and medium guest house owners. The debt occurred from flood disaster was also one of the reasons forcing local people, not only in town area but all district, to sell their lands to investors. In the other words, this policy gave better condition for larger size entrepreneurs.

―I do not have enough money to rebuild my guest house. I do not want to sell my land but I do not have choice if I cannot operate my business‖ Roong, guest house owner (interview, 2009)

Under this flow of development, the living cost in Pai District has sharply increased and the price of guest house in town had risen five times during 1995-2009 (from 50 Baht per night to 300 Baht per night).

“It is normal that when someone buy a land or an old guest house, he will have to raise the price after he improve the condition of it otherwise how can he received the profit” Junjumnong, Manager of Bank Krung Thai, Pai District branch (interview, 2009)

Transportation policy The government airport in Pai District was opened in February 2007 in the area that is part of military area. Comparing with three hour travelling by car, the flight spends only 20 minute flights from Chiang Mai to Pai. Although, this medium creates big effect in time space spatial of Pai District, it cannot contribute opportunity for mass tourism because Pai Airport is only able to be used by small airplane. The airplane only contains 14 seats and has maximum five times a day that means only 70 tourists per day. It is a very small amount comparing to thousands of tourists per day in the destination. The price, around 2000 Baht one way, is also too expensive for middle class people. According to airport officer (interview, 2009), it is not possible to expand the runway because the price of land in Pai District at present time is too high for investment.

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Therefore the main benefit of this material will fall to the large size entrepreneurs who have the high-end tourist as their target group.

Picture 18: Pai airport and air plane

In conclusion, the effect from government policies and the growth of living cost in Pai District is one reason that decreased an attractiveness of Pai District for backpacker and hippies while attracted more on middle class individual and organized mass tourist, and the high-end tourists. In the observation of author in 2009, the number of hippies in Pai town was low. This situation was confirmed by Pirazzi (interview, 2009) the repeating and long term tourists in Pai District:

“Hippies moved out of the area because the actions from police, and nowadays it can be seen that backpackers lived in shorter period of time. Their used to lived here 2-3 weeks or even a month, but now they left after stayed for 5-10 days”

4.3.2 Influence of movies and media toward tourism configuration in Pai District Film tourism or film-induced tourism refers to tourists who have been inspired to experience place and influenced in their travel decision through an organic image source such as film, travel

68 documentaries on television and television series. Film tourism can take in form of sole purpose of tourists‘ travels or the visitation of a very specific point from exacting scene (Roesch, 2009).

According to Riley and Van Doren (1992), film is defined as non-marketer controlled event that enhance the awareness, appeal and profitability of destination in short and long term. Motion picture is the powerful instrument in creating and shaping image through the storyline and the characters, so it contributed emotional involvement with the location (Riley et al., 1998). In this case study, the main purpose of the creative of first movie30 was not promoting tourism or business in the area but to create ‗romance‘ in his movie by embodying it with hill tribe culture, natural locations and locations in town where have unique characteristic of art-led businesses which matched well with romance theme. This situation happened again when Pai District was chosen as location for the other Thai romance movie called ‗Happy Birthday‘. The main characteristics‘ role were two lover tourists who came visit Pai District, so it revealed more about Pai town and attractions. Therefore, Pai District gained attraction status solely in wider Thai audiences, especially the young people who are between 18 and 35 year old, due to its representation in feature film.

According to Roesch (2009), the storyline in film constructs a narrative on destination to audience‘s mind. According to Riley et al. (1998), film produces three kinds of icon that affect tourist behavior onsite: visual, thematic, and physical icons. The visual icon refers to specific attractions that show in the movie which becomes the landmark for tourists to visit, such as Sontichon village, and cafés shown on screen. Physical icon refers to activities that film characteristic participates at the destination, such as watching the view of mountains together. The thematic icon refers to an emotion expressing in film through landscape. Therefore, broadcasting of the films affect tourism configuration of Pai District in two main issues. First, it shaped new image to consider by Pai District as a romance destination, and this new conceptualizing was the new direct for tourism translation process in the third era. According to Macionis (2004), three factors of places, characters and celebrity, and performance create pull motivations for film tourist. Therefore, the number of Thai tourists in Pai District significantly

30 The Memory or Ruk Jung (2006) 69 increased after the movie was shown in theater and the shops that was shown in scene received the most effect.

“In that year, it was disorder. We did not expect that it would be high number of tourists who wanted to sit on the chair that Rattapoom (lead actor of the movie) use to sit in the movie. We could not handle because, we did not prepare ourselves. Normally, we had a good sale in winter season, but this was another level.” (Vanichayanon in Prypansang, 2010)

Picture 19: Location in town from the first film called ‘Ruk Jung’

Between 2006 and 2009, media such as travelling documentary, television shows, drama31, magazine articles, and Thai tourist guide books and websites, had continuously public story about Pai District. They had effects in same term as tourist guidebook by summarizing the destination and providing trip pattern which made it convenient for mass tourism to explore Pai District in a short period of time. From an analysis of tourists‘ trip reviews32, the activities and attractions in Pai District for Thai mass tourism can be represented as follow33:

31 Ubut Ruk Kam Kob Fa (February, 2009 –May, 2009) 32 http://www.nuuneoi.com/blog/blog.php?read_id=287 http://pammy.diaryis.com/2008/01/28 http://travel.mthai.com/view/32909.travel?page=2 http://www.ilovepai.com http://www.muslimthai.com/main/1428/content.php?category=110&id=5317 33 Rafting and elephant riding always be recommended by guide books and media but were not so popular for Thai mass tourists. 70

1. Visiting sightseeing attraction and taking pictures: favorite spots are distance sign, Pai history bridge, Coffee in love café (location of Thai television series ‗Love Beyond Frontier‘), Mit Thai shop (location of movie ‗Ruk Jung‘), All About Coffee café (location of movie ‗Ruk Jung‘), Black canyon branch Pai (location of movie ‗Pai in Love‘), bamboo bridge, Sontichon village, history bridge, hot spring and Kong Lan or Pai Canyon, and temples in Pai District 2. Buying souvenirs especially t-shirts and Sending postcards 3. Flying floating light: it used to be traditional for some places of Thailand that people do only once a year but now it was linked as romance activities and expanded to be an activity that people can do any day in tourist destinations (self-observation). 4. Visiting superficial attractions such as temples, 5. Bike (or motorbike) tour around the town 6. Eating and drinking at famous restaurants such as ‗all about coffee‘, ‗coffee in love‘, ‗Muslim Homemade‘ Rotee, and other international foods

According to Roesch (2009), tourists‘ behaviors, such as shot-recreation and buying, souvenirs are normal physical location encounter for tourists who received an effect from visual consumption about the destination. Filmic gaze and its recording is the relatively passive for tourists to leave their position as gazers upon the sight. The souvenirs collecting is a part of the physical consumption, therefore, the souvenirs relate to these categories are favorite for these tourists: pictorial image (photographs, drawing, and postcards showing Pai District scenery), symbolic shorthand (Distance sign which refer to reaching the place and post box refer to I am far from home), markers (souvenirs with ‗Pai‘ word inscriptions), and local product (craft and food produce). The effects from film and media also made Pai District became ‗in trend‘ destination which provided a fulfilling self-esteem motivation for tourist to go to Pai District.

―Tourists that came right away after the films broadcasted and the ones that came later after Pai District was very famous were different groups. The first group was a young age people

71 while the second group was more like a family group and „Ching Chap tourists‟34. Nowadays, we can see a lot of 60 years old tourists visiting Pai District.‖ Jub, Mu shop owner (interview, 2009)

Picture 20: example of Thai tourist behavior affected by filmic icons

4.3.3 General characteristics of Thai tourist After the development of socio-economic in 1960, the middle class people have better quality of life as they have more income and free time. Therefore, tourism began to be leisure of middle class as well as high class. Mostly, Thai tourist likes to travel as a group (with family or friends) which can classified as private mass tourist. Tour operators are used for their convenient in case of outbound tourism, special tourism (adventure tourism, educational tourism) or any other case. For example, people use tour operators because it is not easy to drive through all curve for non- skillful driver. The favorite period of time is summer break (for student), weekend or long holiday (Song Kran Day in April and New Year). Thai mass tourist, especially the wealthy ones, likes to stay in hotel that has standard service (Champa, 2002).

34 Ching Chap are the name of small Thai music instruments that easy to carry while travelling. Ching Chap tourist refers to a tourist that like to travel as a group with the main purpose is just to having fun. They have less nature conservative behavior, attract to the cheapness, and do not care much about other people. They like to get drunk, sing and dance but since they attract to the cheapness, so normally they do these activities at the place they stay overnight. 72

4.3.4 Tourism businesses’ concepts and strategies The movie makers provided a concept for their audiences to look at Pai District by using movies as the medium for transferring their messages. The consumption behavior of middle class people and effect from visual consumption about the destination created the framework for practices of filmic tourists expressing in the destination. These behaviors provided the high economic benefit to existing businesses, such as souvenir shops, middle size accommodation, and café and restaurants serving middle class people taste. This situation leaded changes in some existing entrepreneurs and brought new entrepreneurs into the destination. Their practices show their purpose to enroll their businesses into new tourism configuration as follow.

1)Investment of national brand businesses: It began to have a branch of national brand establish in Pai District in 2004, but the number of this kind of business has increased sharply after 2007. The general logic of this kind of business is following the mass of people and providing ‗the convenient, standard (sometime also lower price) businesses‘ to people. In 2009, Pai District had four seven-eleven minimart branches, five banks, several café franchises, and many more branches and franchise business.

2) Establishment of new type of business for mass tourism: The most significant business established in this era was the van tour business. The idea to create this business came from the gap between problem of transportation and needs of Thai mass tourists. Many Thai tourists used public transportation to transfer from Chiang Mai to Pai District, but they wanted to visit all the sightseeing in Pai District and the Mae Hong Son main district. Therefore, the local car is the solution to solve the problem. Van car is chosen as the material to operate this business because it has the most potential to bend time and space spatial. In the other words, it is the faster vehicle than the bus while capable to contain the enough number of passengers to make the business gain profit. The entrepreneurs opened their offices in town as medium to create relations with tourist such as providing information and gathering customers. The same idea also occurred in small tour agencies that transfer tourists from Bangkok to Pai District, but they use information and communication technology instead offices. Tour agencies contact with customers through materials such as websites and telephone while e-banking system is used as the equipment to

73 bridge financial transaction between agencies and tourists. This kind of tour may use or not use tour guide which depend on the main motivation of tourist.

3) Customization their businesses: In this era, many businesses adjusted themselves in order to be suit with behavior of Thai customers including:

- Creating land marks: in order to respond to gazing recording behavior, many entrepreneurs produced the land mark materials to attract tourists.

―I built the café on the side of the high way that far from town because I want my customers to see the beautiful view of Pai District. I would like my business to be one of Pai District land mark that people can see when they come or leave Pai town. I built a large decorate sign to make people notice about my shop, and to attract to come visit as well. Because I believe that people want to take a break after their long journey and it is good for them to have a land mark for taking photo‖ Coffee in Love owner (interview, 2009)

Picture 21: Landmark in Pai District in the third tourism configuration35

35 Source: http://www.bloggang.com/mainblog.php?id=travelsomewhere&month=04-01-2010&group=34&gblog=2 74

- Redecoration business: many businesses renovated their shops by making look more modern, or turned their business to sell the products that match with new tourist behavior.

―We had to do it. Nowadays the competition in Pai District is high. If we do not do anything we would have to leave the place. We used to be able sell our bread and cake were complete by seven-eleven minimarts, our fresh food, such as meat and sausage, have to fight with branch of C.P. company (one of the biggest food companies in Thailand) and they know everything because we used to be their client. Now, we lost both Thai and foreign customers. So, our last hope is the café that we just opened by using our strong point of homemade bread and cake.‖ (Aoi Bakery owner interview, 2009)

―I changed a bit of my souvenir style. When I sold to foreign tourists, I just took the picture of landscape, people, buffalo, and something that they do not have in their countries. But for Thai tourists, word inscriptions and artifice are very importance.‖ (Sabaidee shop owner interview, 2009)

4) Short term marketing opportunity businesses: As Pai District became one of the most popularity destinations, few types of entrepreneurs conceptualized this situation as a short term economic benefit opportunity, and practiced their businesses by focusing on motivation and expectation of Thai mass tourists. This group included national product firms and mobile businesses.

National product firms used Pai District as a place to promote their product or keep their products in people‘s mind by conducting events in the area. In the other words, destination was used as the medium to consolidate between their business and customers. In the high season of 2009 while the author stayed in Pai District, there were the special events supported by national product firms in every weekend.

Mobile businesses are the businesses that move from place to place to open their temporary booth. This type of businesses focuses on building the temporary relations with tourists by using location in the destination as the medium to mobilize their business, but they does not a strong

75 relations with other actors in the destination and leave the place after the tourism season finish. This group of businesses includes the businesses focusing on human basic needs such as food and drink, the businesses that have their own characteristics such as the second hand product shops, and the businesses that play with tourist‘s motivation of self-esteem fulfilling by selling souvenirs. The last group usually used price competition strategy to compete with the shops in Pai District by using the same idea but selling in lower price (sometime also decrease their quality).

4.3.5 Accommodation business in the third era There are three main types of accommodation in third era and they all use different modes of ordering to operate their businesses.

1) Small size accommodation: This type of accommodation is normally placed in the center of Pai District. Many of them still run by local people and entrepreneurs who have come into the business since the second era. Normally, it is a family business running by only one or two persons. In modes of ordering of these entrepreneurs, their investment behaviors, landscapes, and culture of customers of the key concepts of framework for their business strategies. They are the risk avoidable type investors that do not want to loan money for investment, therefore they try to make business as simple as possible and keep their investment and operation cost low. The main target of this group is the backpackers who look for cheap accommodation in town because its strong point is the cheapness (comparing with the other types, its price is the lowest which around 300-500 Baht per night) and locating in town. The bus station is also located in town which makes it easy for walk-in backpackers. In the other words, space and time between them and medium like bus consolidate their relations with tourists. Therefore, an idea to build new and bigger bus station out of down town area might be problem for them in the future. For the small accommodations that do not have the advantage from location, they concentrate more on price strategy by operating as a cheap long term gust houses (around 1000 – 2000 Baht per month) to attract long term visitors. Culture of visitors are also an important issue that they take into account for their strategies.

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―They have the important different behaviors. Thai tourists stay only in the weekend but foreign tourists stay at least five days, so normally I prefer foreign tourists. But Thai tourists know that it will be crowded in the weekend, so they are the groups that make more reservation. The way to solve this problems I always keep one or two room without allowing for reservation and wait for foreign walk-in tourists.‖ Ban Sang Hean Guest House owner (interview, 2009)

Cultural conflicts always happened in this type of business because their market position attract to most problem for individual mass tourists: for foreign tourists are ‗the sun, sand, sea, sex tourist types‘ and for Thai tourists are ‗the Ching Chap tourist types‘.

―They create different kinds of problems. Foreign tourists who like the parties, they go to pubs and get drunk , come back and make a noise until they sleep. Ching Chap tourists sing the songs after they have dinner until the late of the night, but these groups are easier to notice and avoid from the first groups because they usually come with the music instruments. It will be easy if they came with the big groups and occupy the whole guest house; otherwise I have to keep warning them to keep their voice down.‖ Tayai Guest House manager (interview, 2009)

Picture 22: Small guest house in Pai District

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2) Medium size accommodation: This type of accommodation is normally located outside downtown area and operated by small and middle outside investors. Some of them have an accommodation business experience, but in the past few years there have been many new entrepreneurs who do not have any experience before tried to open their businesses here.

They conceptualized Pai District as an art town with beautiful scenery, so they choose to place their businesses in location that has mountains or riverside scenery, and pay attention on the decoration styles. They are the group that bought lands in high price, so it forced them to place their market positions higher (price between 700 and 3000 Baht per night) than the small size guest houses which makes their main targets are the middle class tourists of both Thai and foreign.

The main issue for these entrepreneurs was to create the linkage with tourists before they came to the destination, because the chance that tourists would drive around the district and choose their accommodations instead of other 300 accommodations around were low. Therefore, the time space spatial materials that would help them able to connect with tourists are most important to their businesses. The entrepreneurs who have the experiences or started their business in Pai District for long enough to create the relations with guidebooks, travel guide websites, and tour agencies have more advantages because they can use these mediums to consolidate their relations with tourists and able to mobilize their businesses. The new comers have to create their mediums to make the connection with tourist, such as opening their own website, posting on tourism web board, and opening booth in tourism fair. The other way is to establish the connection with the more well known accommodations, so they would receive tourists after tourist numbers are over capacity of these well know accommodations and they also have to pay commissions for these accommodations. In conclusion, this group of entrepreneurs had the most difficult condition to establish their networks in the destinations.

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Picture 23: Medium size accommodation36

―From my own observation, I have seen a turnover rate of business in Pai District becomes increasing more and more. But, the new comers do not notice about it. They always think that they have a chance. So, it is the same as stock market that the later you come to business, the more chance you will suffer‖ Jub, Mu shop owner (interview, 2009)

3) Large size accommodation: This type of accommodation was operated expert investors in tourism business or accommodation business. Their vision about Pai District was the destination that had market potential and still had market gap that they still could insert themselves into. Their main targets are upper class and high-end tourists, and MICE market (Meeting, Incentive, Convention, and Exhibition) as well. This kind of hotels priced between 3000 and 12,000 Baht per night. They built their businesses with the obvious market positions and specific images or strength, for example, safari resort styles, or hot spring spa and resorts.

―Our strong point is the hot spring water for service our customers. We undertake to build the tube from hot spring source to the community and share the usage with them.‖ Surangkun, Pai Hot Spring owner (interview, 2009)

It was very importance of this size of business to have strong partnerships and customers based which vary through their strategies. Their basic partnerships were inbound and domestic tour

36 Source of picture: http://www.thai-tour.com/thai-tour/North/maehongson/hotel/at-pai/index.html 79 operators that they able to insert their accommodations into the tour program. Some of them have the relations with private organizations or government organizations that would organize the meeting or exhibition at their places. Normally, hotels in Pai District are the products in their business lines. They might have hotels in the other destinations or different tourism businesses. They built the hotels in Pai District as a part of growth plan in their companies which would provide their opportunities to create new tourism products to serve customers and their business partnerships. They also created business relations with other businesses, such as an elephant camps, in Pai District in order to provide service more just accommodation. Therefore, mediums such as meetings, business contracts, mails, and money, were essential for them to mobilize their networks.

Picture 24: Large size accommodation in Pai District37

4.3.6 Conclusion It can be seen that the flow of development had begun since early of 2000s. The growth of larger size businesses supported by government policy followed ‗Samui scenario‘ that the destination turned into the place for upper class foreign visitors in the end. However, this process was shaken by the appearance of movies that not only expedited the economic growth and development but also inserted the new actor ‗mass Thai tourist‘ into the destination. The new

37 Source: http://webboard.tourthai.com/index.php?topic=16451.0 80 tourism configuration having Thai tourists on the central of networks established overlap with the old tourism configuration having foreign backpackers on the central. This situation makes tourism configuration in Pai District become the hybrid between ‗Samui scenario‘ and ‗Boutique Bazaar38‘.

38 Boutique Bazaar is the new trend in domestic tourism destination development. It came from the force of nostalgia feeling in Thai metropolitans which made the destination develop in theme of traditional market and retro market. (Siripokasai, 2009) 81

Chapter 5 Conclusion and Discussion

5.1 Introduction This research focused on the development of tourism in Pai District, and examined it as a dynamic translation and in term of tourism configurations. Tourism configurations are social networks constructed by network relations between actors such as tourists, entrepreneurs and media, and entities such as accommodations and natural resources in the area. The identity of actors, entities, and tourism configurations are represented through their network relations. Development can be viewed as changing of translation in destinations. Translation processes give new definitions to the destinations through construction of new network relations. In the past three decades, Pai District, the research site, has been going through three translation processes that changed it from a remote rural area to an ethnic tourist destination, a hub for foreign backpackers, and a filmic and romantic destination for domestic mass tourists.

The research combined several sources of data and methods in order to explore and analyze the relations and network among actors. Information from literature review was combined with participant observation onsite and conducting interviews with actors including local people, tourism business entrepreneurs, government officers, and tourists. The relations and interactions among these actors derived from data collection were used to explain the construction of tourism configurations in each period of time.

5.2 Conclusion In the case of Pai District I discerned three particular configurations (see also table 1). In the first translation, Pai District was transformed from a rural area into a trekking and ethnic tourist destination. It began from the idea of trekking tour entrepreneurs from Chiang Mai who wanted to expand their businesses in Chiang Mai to another destination. The road linking Chiang Mai – Pai District – Mae Hong Son the main district was used by Chiang Mai entrepreneurs to connect between their headquarters in Chiang Mai and attractions in Pai District in order to operate their trekking tours. It was also this road that allowed tourists to travel by themselves to Pai town and create direct relationship with local people. The relationship between tourists and local people

82 created tourism businesses operated by local people, such as accommodations and local trekking tours. Finally, Pai District became a tourist destination for trekking and ethnic tours which had Pai town as the central area.

In the second translation process guidebooks, naming Pai District as a tourist destination, played a very important role as the main medium, it gathered a new type of tourists into the destination with less adventurous behavior. Tourists began to create dense networks among themselves, and shared norms and perspectives. Instead of staying for several days only for participation in trekking activities, tourists stayed in the area for a longer period of time (1 - 6 months). According to Sorensen (2007) this condition helped creating a new gaze on the destination. As result, Pai District was re-defined by backpackers as a ‗relaxing‘ destination. The new definition was communicated through mediums, for instance guidebooks, information technologies, photographs, and word of mouth to other actors, such as entrepreneurs and tourists who had not been in Pai District yet, and kept them in this definition. This is illustrated by the changing of definition of Pai District in the Lonely Planet guidebook from ‗basement of trekking tours‘ to ‗Mecca of backpackers‘. The tourists increasingly controlled the direction of the tourism configuration by creating and participating in activities and businesses that suited with their definition.

In the third translation, movie makers selected parts of Pai District, such as the natural landscape, the landscape in town and attractions with landmark potential, and then provided a new definition to the area as the ‗romantic‘ place. Movies and media were the materials connecting Pai with large numbers of audiences who usually were young people and middle class people. The movies and media introduced new landmarks, such as cafes, souvenirs, foods, night market, temples and Suntichon village. As a result, the number of tourists in Pai District considerately increased. Many of them were the mass tourists who came to visit the landmarks that they saw in the media. These tourists spent a short period of time in Pai District (3-5 days) and stimulated growth of the tourism businesses responding to mass tourists, for instance middle size accommodations, mobile booth businesses, and organized tours. The development of the three tourism configurations in Pai District is summarized in Table 1.

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st nd rd 1 translation 2 translation 3 translation Range of Time 1980-1995 1996-present 2006-present Central Theme Exploring the virgin Relaxing and Romance destination (UTOPAI) entertainment Trigger (main Road Guidebook Movies and Media medium) Main actors in Chiang Mai trekking Tourists Movie makers translation tour owners process Selected Trekking, Local guest Guest house, Bars, Guest house, Businesses house, Adventure Restaurants, Souvenir Restaurants, Souvenir activities shop, Massage, shop, Organizing tour Motorbike renting, and so on Process Extending networks Interaction among Movie provided new from Chiang Mai tourists, and between definition and brought trekking business by tourists and guidebooks Thai mass tourist into using the same tourists attracted business the area. The mass as mediator relating with tourist became focal backpacker‘s behavior actor for the rest processes Result (using Local guest house Bamboo guest house Variety types of accommodation represents intense represents backpacker‘s accommodation business as relation between local gaze on destination represent various example ) people and tourists tourists. The highest amount of middle size accommodation also represents the power of middle class tourists Table 1: Summary of Pai District tourism configuration development

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5.3 Discussion This research showed that in line with actor-network theory the development of destinations should be studied in terms of tourism configurations which emerge out of complex translation processes. In case of Pai District, it demonstrates that one destination can enact more than one tourism configuration at the same time. These tourism configurations have their own ‗life‘, which constructed from different interest networks. Tourists who connect with different networks have dissimilar narratives about destination which relate to values, judgments and legitimacy that tourists have about destination. For example, Thai tourists who connect with mass media, such as Ching Chab tourists, view Pai District as an ‗in trend‘ destination. The values of Pai District of these tourists relate to the frequency of Pai District in media which differ from the values of Pai District from tourists who have narratives about Pai District as art town that has beautiful landscape, and consists of the bars playing live music, international foods and art materials. These two narratives about Pai District constructed their own tourism configurations which have their own pattern of growth and decline. Therefore, it illustrates that tourist destinations do not exactly move from one stage to the other stage as claimed by the economic models of destination development such as the Tourism Area Life Cycle model.

The tourism Area Life Cycle model might be able to explain the situation in the early stages of destination development when there is only one tourism configuration in the destination. But when the destinations come to a mature stage, and have more than one tourism configuration at the same time, the explanatory power of this model decreases. This case study also provides an argument that the stage called ‗Rejuvenation‘ does not have to occur after the ‗stagnation stage‘ of a destination. Rejuvenation is referred to the process of re-imaging existing products, or utilizing unexploited natural resources to create new sense of interest in a destination. This case study shows that rejuvenation or translation can occur in any stage of destination development. Nowadays, globalization forces and innovation technologies provide many materials or forces that can shape and control destinations from a distance, for example the communication through cyberspace among tourists. Therefore, it can be concluded that a destination consisting of heterogeneous tourism configurations cannot be predicted by the economic model.

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Sustainable development should not be considered in terms of numbers of tourists or amount of income, but should be considered in terms of maintaining the strength of networks in tourism configurations. Nowadays, the number of tourists in Pai District exceeds its carrying capacity. Pai town area had a population of 2,284 in 2006 but the number of tourists in December 2005 – January 2006 was 119,407, and increased to 169,910 in December 2006 – January 2007 (42.29% more than the year before)39, and the number of tourists continuously increased in 2008 and 200940. As the small district in the remote area, the infrastructure in Pai District cannot support this number of tourists and causes a lot of problems, such as lacking of water and electric power, medical problems41, and waste problems. This tourism growth also decreases tourists‘ satisfaction, especially foreign backpackers, when perceive crowding in Pai town. These tourists may still visit Pai District, but avoid an encounter with Thai mass tourists by staying in Pai town only during weekdays (Thai mass tourists normally come only in the weekend42) or changing the period of time for visiting to August and September. From these problems, the high growth in number of tourists creates problem for destination sustainable development in future. Moreover, sustainable development may refer to constructing new translation. For example, the large size accommodation entrepreneurs maybe the group that have more influence in Pai District development in the future, because they have strong connections with business partners, such as tour operators and tour agencies, which allow them to construct a new translation process that connects with new groups of tourist, for instance the high-end tourists.

Local empowerment in tourism configurations This research showed that the role of local people in managing tourism businesses decrease over time. They now are only owners of small guest houses, shops and restaurants in town, and labor in outside businesses such as hotels. They already lost their position of translators who can control the direction of tourism configurations since the second era, so they also lost their position to have economic benefits in the long term. It is obvious that they cannot win if they are

39 Source: Tourism Authority of Thailand 40 There are not available data in 2008 and 2009, but it can be assumed from the observation of entrepreneurs in Pai town. 41 There are only one hospital and four doctors in Pai District. 42 School in Thai closes for the summer break between March and May, and closes for the half year in September, therefore the student has to go to school during the high season of Pai District which occurred from October to February 86 controlled by other actors. For example, if they produce souvenirs in the sense of modern art, they could not compete with ones from the creative entrepreneurs group.

Organizations, such as the local government and the state, focused on the way to manage the growth of tourism, but not on how they could control the direction of tourism configuration which I believe it is more important than growth. In order to empower the local people, local people and local culture have to be enacted to tourism configuration. Shan culture is the largest culture of local people in the area, but the value in this culture still cannot establish strong relations with tourists and existing tourism configurations because there are no translation process connecting this culture and tourists. Visitchotangkun, a local who worked as local guide of ecotours (interview, 2009) stated:

“Although, we have a long history and unique cultural sites, we are lack of people who can communicate with tourists and make them appreciate our culture. The materials that we use for announcement are only the onsite signs which are not good enough.‖

I think that Santochon Village which I mentioned as a case study in section 4.3.1 is a good example of transforming local culture into a tourism attraction by building their cultural center that demonstrate their traditional food, activities, crafts and agricultural products. A material thing like cultural center makes it easier to create a connection with other actors such as tourists, tour operators, and other business partners. The same scenario can happen with Shan culture. Instead of selling some general products that might be found in other places in northern Thailand, local entrepreneurs should focus more on collecting products signifying Shan culture aspects and represent them together in one place.

5.4 Recommendations for future research This research was a pilot project that revealed significant actors who influenced the development of the destination. In order to create more insight knowledge and verification of tourist destination studies by using the Actor –Network perspective, the author suggest two types of

87 future researches: research which follows actors and comparative research which analyzes development in different destinations.

5.4.1 Research following actors From the finding of this research, there were actors who had the potential to negotiate with other actors to get their interest accepted, such as explorer tourists and hippies. Future research should be conducted by following these actors, examining social relations between them and other actors in other destinations, and comparing these social relations with the social relations that they created in Pai District. - Follow tourists: Researchers can conduct research by following tourists who have specific beliefs or norms, such as hippies or explorers. These tourists can be seen as ethnic groups who move to tourist destinations and exchange their ideas and norms with other actors in order to contribute to social relations. This kind of research would offer more insight knowledge about the influence of ethnicscapes or flow of cultures from tourists by focusing on their modes of ordering and examining on how they contribute to relations in various destinations. - Follow mediums: Researchers may follow material objects used as mediums in translation processes and analyze their roles in other tourist destinations, for example following domestic movies to film locations in beach areas in southern Thailand. Researchers can also follow the international movies, such as ‗The Beach‘, which would create an opportunity to compare between influences of international movies and domestic movies on tourist destinations.

5.4.2 Researches analyze development in different destinations The study about destination development in term of tourism configurations can be used to analyze different types of destination, such as national parks, heritage sites, urban towns, and marine tourist destinations. The study may also be conducted in a rural area that has a different translator‘s interest and translation process, for example the translation of rural area to art towns, such as ‗Palio the Little Italy‘, retro markets, such as ‗Ampawa Market‘, and traditional towns, such as ‗Chiang Kan‘. The studies of development in these destinations not only reveal power

88 and relations of actors under a variety of conditions, but also create understanding in the social structure in Thailand which impacts tourism development in this country.

Picture 25: Palio ‘The Little Italy’

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APPENDIX 1: Time line of development in Pai District

Year Tourism Situation Business Non-Human Social Context Government Actors Action 2007- -The highest -Huge number of -Pai featured in the 2009 growth in number businesses for other movie and of Thai tourist in middle class Thai being broadcasted Pai District tourist were through many established kinds of media 2006 -Pai featured in Thai popular romantic movies, ‗Ruk Jung‘ 2005 -Establishment of -Establishment of - Reparation of -Local people sold -Free market trade Pai Tourism 7-eleven franchise Airport Lane their title deed of with China Association convenient store finished land (issued last 10 -Announced plan -Establishment of -More problem of years) for local people to Yunnan Chinese electricity -Flood disaster all reduce half of the Cultural Center Pai District area for garlic -Local -Garlic‘s price planting Government decreased -Central opened fresh government market in front of provide budget of its office every OTOP project morning and 400000 Bath for evening each sub district -The second election for local government 2004 -Local people in -Electricity often -There was water -Local government riverside of had power failure supply problem in built new town downtown problem summer market after Lue increased number -Tsunami disaster sold the old one to of guess house in south area of investor business (villa de Thailand Pai reverside2) -AOI Bakery expanded its minimart section selling western ingredient 2003 -Larger size -Increasing number -Government entrepreneurs of non local declared started to invest in entrepreneurs who aggressive policy Pai District, bought land for against drug all including investors investment in over Thailand from tourism resort and guess business from the house south coast of -Increasing number Thailand of non-local business (there were around 60 restaurants in town)

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2002 -Rapid growth of -Local people -Water pollution -Started project tourism and increasingly problem increased ‗OTOP‘ number of tourist invested in guess -Economic in Pai -Government in Pai but trekking house business rapidly grew started to suppress tour decreased especially in -It became popular drug as a national -There were riverside area in Lisu, one of hill policy Japanese tourists (riverside1) tribes in Pai, to who sign 3-5 years -The van marry foreigners. rent contract in transportation land and houses business between -ATTA promoted Chiang Mai- Pai Pai to tour was organized operators -There were a loud full moon party at night 2001 -Golden age for -Movement from -Second boom land -Establishment of foreign backpacker temporary trading after 10 Pai cultural centre (199-2001) merchants from years condition of -Establishment of Chiang Mai deed finished walking street for -Beginning of tourist to booth higher class of tourism accommodation like resort 2000 -High growth of -Increasing number -Social context in tourism in Pai but of guess house Pai rapidly declining of own by outsider changed. Many adventure tour entrepreneurs local residents in -Pai tourism -Transportation downtown sold development still business system their land and came from local was organized moved to further business. area. -Government tourism organization still did not realize much about tourism in Pai 1995- -Number of -Some education -Heroin problem in -Amazing Thailand 1999 foreign tourist still people and people Santichon village project to promote kept increasing and who worked in tourism from TAT some of them lived creative business in 1996 for year from big town -Pai started to be moved in and known for Thai started their tourist business in the area -Decline of -Continuous trekking tour in Pai growth of business in Pai (new businesses such as minimart, souvenir shop, coffee restaurant, motorcycle taxi, ‗B Bop‘ the western style pub

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1995- -Increasing number 1999 of restaurants -Highly increasing number of accommodation and spread to other area beyond downtown 1990- -High number of -The small number -Speculation of -Government 1994 foreign of guess house land in downtown issued title deed of backpackers in started to increase area land with condition high season and especially in -Social context in that it could be many tourists downtown area. downtown sold after 10 years stayed for long The price by that changed: local -Many road term (1-3 months) time was 50-60 people began to construction -Decline of bath per night live as modern projects in local tourism in Mae -Golden age of lifestyle and being area Hong Son main trekking to in Pai indebt for TV, car, district after 1993 District etc. -Beginning of tourism business expansion: bike renting, motor bike renting, massage, canoeing, rafting, tourist pub (blue mountain) 1985- -There was a small -Prempracha ran -Highway road -Social -Created dam for 1989 group of foreign public from Pai to Chiang characteristics electricity power backpackers (2-3 transportation from Mai finished in continuously people) and group Mae Hong son 1985 turned into of motorcycle main district- Pai- -Pai was able to commerce adventure tourist Chiang Mai receive TV. signal, agricultural society came to visit Pai -Establishment of telephone signal -After the having a almost every day local trekking tour and public good road, there -Tourism in Mae of agencies electricity was land trading Hong Son main provided 3-7 days -Establishment of with non local district became trekking, visiting school of hill tribe people, mainly very popular. hill tribe villages, people because local Many tourists elephant riding and -Construction of people wanted traveled there by bamboo rafting road inside the money for send minibus and Pai -Establishment of district their children to district also had elephant camp study in Chiang advantage as the -There were only Mai (the price stop spot between restaurants and around 25,000 the way shops for local bath per 1,600 people until an meter2) outsider opened a -Establishment of restaurant for Muslim mosque tourist called ‗own home‘ in 1987, then fellow by other local restaurants -Kee, the French, started his

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1985- adventure tourism 1989 business in 1986 -Establishment of Krungthai bank branch in Pai -There were small number of guess house but after 1987 local people offered rent contract for outsiders to build guess houses 1980- -Tourists in this -Pha Siam Co. - New commerce -Local people -Government had 1984 period of time operated small air market called turned to crop for focused on came with guides plane business for ‗Sang Tong their economic infrastructure since from Chiang Mai government market‘ was benefits 1980 -Tourists officials and established in 1981 -Built hot spring attractions close to merchants but for the use of local Mae Hong Son the closed in 1981 people main district after its accident -Establishment of became famous for - Prempracha soldier basement in both Thai and started Pai foreign tourists transportation -Bank of -There were not business in the area agriculture tour promotion for -establishment of provided loan for Pai area new commerce farmers -Few foreign area in downtown backpackers came -Juk the police to visit Pai man distributed part of his house and created the first guess house in Pai, then, few other police men did the same and the most favorite one called ‗buffalo view‘ which also provided trekking tour 1970- -There were some -Establishment of -Flood problem all 1979 foreigners came to Pai shcool district in 1973 visit Pai -Establishment of -Yunnan Chinese Pai hospital moved to Pai and -Construction of found Santichon gravel road village connecting Pai- Chiang Mai for mine industry finished 1954- -Muslim merchants - The road reached -Serious flood 1969 commerce in the Wiangnuer Sub problem in 1954 area District -Mine industry set up around the area

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1941 -Chinese people -Japan army built started businesses road from Chiang in area Mai to Mae Hong Song

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APPENDIX 2: Interview respondents

Tourism Entrepreneurs

Accommodation Interviewees Large size Sinsamut (Bell Villa) Surangkun, S. (Pai Hot Spring) Medium size Sinklum, P. (The Pai Resort) Hongvisitkul, C. (Agape de Pai) Pai Wiman Resort owner Guntadee, W. (Pai Baan Thai) Small size Tayai Guest House manager Naun (Nuan Guest House) Ban Sang Hean Guest House owner

Activities and Interviewees Attractions businesses Local guide trekking Punwa, S. tour Local guide for eco Visitchotangkun, V. tour Satichon village Bunlaw (head of village) attraction Wun (villager and work on site) Van tour Khokthi (Khokthi Service)

Traditional muscle Seau treatment Elephant camp Thom (Thom's Pai Elephant Camp)

Town Amenity Interviewees Businesses Restaurant & Café Coffee in Love owner Aoi (Aoi Bakery owner) Pat Thai Na Win owner Ta Yai restaurant owner Amido‘s Pizza Garden partnership owner Pub Mello Yello Pub owner Pai Post Bar owner Souvenir Shop Jub (Mu shop) Sabaidee shop owner Nid (seller) Om (seller) Ja (seller)

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Town Amenity Interviewees Businesses Temporary Stall Toh (Tokyo sweet from Pitsanulok) Na (Rote Chiang Mai) Nok Eang Num (hill tribe) Pratom Nueng (first grade owner)

Other Business Interviewees Tour operator Surangkun, S. (C.E.O. NoomSao Travel & Tours Co.Ltd.) Bank manager Junjumnong, C. (Manager of Bank Krung Thai, Pai District branch) Travel agency Sancharoen, S. President of Pai Guntadee, W. Entrepreneur Association and Organizer for event N.D.

Tourist Interviewees Thais Depweerapong Hemradee Foreign Henry and Pierre (French) Pirazzi, C. (American) Liz (England)

Local People Interviewees Visitchotangkun, M. (Woman, Age 61) Wanta (Woman, 35) Suree (Woman, 47)

Government officers Organization Interviewees Tourism and Sport office of Mae Hong Son Preawprai, C. (Director) Tourism Authority of Thailand branch Mae Bauchom, W. (Director) Hong Son Mae Hong Son Office of Immigration Officer Pai Forrest Office Officer Pai Police station Officer Pai Airport Officer Pai District Office Officer Tourism Authority of Thailand Officer Mae He Sub District Local Government Officer Down town Government Director Mae Hong Son Land Office Officer

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