TOURISTS’ REQUIREMENT FOR DEVELOPING COMMUNITY PRODUCTS AS SOUVENIRS IN RANONG PROVINCE, THAILAND PHANITTHAT PUNGPAKDEE Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University E-mail: [email protected] Abstract - The objective of this study aims to explore what are the requirements that tourists want to develop the community product as souvenirs in Ranong Province, Thailand about product design and logo in order to meet the want and need of tourists as the main consumer. This study employed an accidental sampling which is a form of non-probability sampling. The questionnaires packages were through randomly distributed to 400 Thai tourists who were traveling in Ranong province, Thailand at 5 districts as follows: Mueang Ranong District, Kra buri District, La-un District, Suk Samran District and Kapoe District. The findings revealed that that tourists’ requirement for developing community products in Ranong Province, Thailand as souvenirs concerning product design and logo agreed that there should have identity of the community on the logo for community products were as high as 90.3 percent. On logo design should have the identity of the community, local wisdom and natural color tone. Tourists’ requirement for developing community products needed to be emphasis on promoting tourism and promoting the identity of local wisdom. It is important to use paper as the primary material for packaging. The most purchasing products as souvenirs in Ranong province, Thailand are food, beverage, herbal, clothes/costume and other souvenir items. Due to the popular purchasing products as souvenirs in Ranong province was food category, therefore, to develop community products as souvenirs, entrepreneurs should emphasis on the right selection of colors when designing a logo, and packaging must be easy to portable and storage. Keywords - Community Product, Package, Logo, Development, Requirement, Identity, Local Wisdom I. INTRODUCTION from each country have different behaviors thus the entrepreneur must learn to make products and services Tourism is one of the Thailand’s largest industries, that meet the needs of customers at the point. Tourism and has become an important sector that has an impact industry is the core business and creating job on development of country economy. Tourism opportunities, generation of income to the population, business could have a bright future and well growing. increasing standard of living and increasing the There are many old and new entrepreneurs who get country’s economy. Shopping is an important activity involved in this business so that the competition is of the visitor experience and can be leveraged by the high. As the tourism industry becomes more community to capture a larger share of tourists’ competitive, communities are recognizing that spending. Revenues from tourism are distributed from promotion and positioning alone will not guarantee tourists to business owners and then to locals. For success. However, those entrepreneurs need to be example, as tourist behaviors who visit the area would active and improve their own business that allowed like to buy community products as souvenirs. The them to achieve greatness. money from these tourists will be distributed to local The accomplishment of entrepreneurship is vital for producers; therefore, tourists are the primary modern organizations that seek to serve suppliers and consumers and buy community products as souvenirs. customers, increase business performance, and attain Therefore customer value is positively correlated with regular success in global business. Thus, it is customer satisfaction [2]. necessary for modern organizations to investigate their entrepreneurship and internationalization Nowadays, the number of tourists interested to shop applications, create a strategic plan to explore their products made by locals as souvenir are increasing. functional advancements, and immediately respond to Those products are sourced and made locally and the entrepreneurship and internationalization needs of ethically. It makes the community products become customers. Applying entrepreneurship and the important products and businesses that bring internationalization has the potential to increase income into the country. In addition, the government organizational performance and achieve strategic has policies to support each local community to have goals in global business [1]. income and occupation from producing and The importance of running tourism and hospitality distributing products in the form of ethnic products. business is how to achieve the highest level of Therefore, it made goods and products from customer satisfaction. When there’s a high community people popular and more widespread [3]. competitive, therefore, entrepreneurs have to make a Also, in Ranong province, Thailand, there are many difference to attract customers because customers community products that made by locals due to raw Proceedings of 122nd IASTEM International Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa, 25th-26th June 2018 134 Tourists’ Requirement for Developing Community Products as Souvenirs in Ranong Province, Thailand materials and resources could be easily found and tourists who were traveling in Ranong province, available in the areas so that people in the community Thailand at 5 districts as follows: Mueang Ranong could produce goods and products for sale as souvenirs District, Kra buri District, La-un District, Suk Samran to tourists. District and Kapoe District. The respondents (tourists) were asked to fill out the questionnaire. The The 12th National Economic and Social Development questionnaire took approximately 15-20 minutes to Plan (2017-2021), based on the concept of complete on average. "Sufficiency Economy Philosophy" under the Royal Initiative King Rama IX continued from the previous The primary data collection process took place on development plan so that development in all April 2018 through a questionnaire survey which dimensions was integrated on the middle line; modest, consist of 14 questions and were divided into 2 reasonable and has a good immune system to sections, as follows: 1) Section A: Demographic harmonize with social environment. All development profile of the respondents as personal information has a balance between economic, social and ecological, consist of gender, age, occupation, educational level and focuses on "people-centered development" to and income; 2) Section B: Questions about Tourists’ build national security by develop people of all ages to requirement for community product packaging design be good people, talented and creative. This is the key and logo development in Ranong Province, Thailand; to boosting competitiveness in both the manufacturing The questionnaire was prepared in Thai language. and service sectors. The government has a policy to The sample of this research is calculated by using Taro increase the country's economic potential by Yamane (Yamane, 1973) formula with 95% developing raw materials and production processes to confidence level. According to 645,451 tourists meet the standards and empowerment of small and visiting Ranong province from the data of Ministry of medium enterprises. Therefore, those enterprises can Tourism and Sports official report 2017 [6]. The effectively compete to increase the knowledge of how calculation formula of Taro Yamane is presented as to improve the efficiency of the production process in follows. product development and management development within the organization [4]. Participation is one of the key success factors in tourism development, but is practically hard to achieve especially in the context of developing countries such as Thailand due to several Where: reasons [5]. n = sample size required N = number of population required Therefore, the researcher is interested to study about e = allowable error (%) tourists’ requirement for developing community products in Ranong Province, Thailand as souvenir Substitute numbers in formula: regarding product design and logo in order to implement guidelines for leverage the product value and increasing sales volume in the future. II. OBJECTIVES After calculated the sample size by substituting the numbers into the Yamane formula, the numbers of The objective of the study is to study what kind of sample is 399.75226484127137 persons. In order to community product packaging design and logo that obtain reliable of data, researcher has increased tourists require to develop community products as sample size to 400 persons. souvenirs in Ranong province, Thailand to implement guidelines for leverage the product value and IV. DATA ANALYSIS increasing sales volume in the future. All the data gathered from the questionnaire were III. METHODS processed and analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. Several The study focused on tourists’ requirement for statistical tests were used to analyze all data and developing community products in Ranong Province, information. A descriptive statistic used including Thailand about product design and logo. This study frequencies and percentage to screen and describe the employed an accidental sampling which is a form of data distribution. non-probability sampling. The questionnaires packages were through randomly distributed to Thai Proceedings of 122nd IASTEM International Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa, 25th-26th June 2018 135 Tourists’ Requirement for Developing Community Products as Souvenirs in Ranong Province, Thailand V.