restaurants and the Thai-Chinese styled rice noodle soup shops, an abundance of local food souvenirs in the river
markets and food festivals along with a plenty of events to attract tourists. From the interviews and observations, the
result found that Ayutthaya is absolutely a food destination for gastronomic tourists and the city illustrates its success
through these concepts: 1) presenting food as a means to create cultural capital and social status, 2) developing a density
of local food product which results in a tourism eating and shopping experience, 3) creating a local authentic promise
based upon good quality and fair pricing, 4) creating a unique food product better than that found in other regional food
destinations, 5) local entrepreneurs seeing themselves as being involved in tourism and 6) tourism providers focusing on
food as a point of difference.
CONCLUSION
In Thailand, leisure trends have identified that the so-called gastronomic tourists are looking for a more
participatory style of holiday experience, which satisfies their interest in food and beverages and contributes to their
personal development and social status. TAT is now recognizing the potential of gastronomic tourism as a powerful
instrument to identify and promote places, regions or even entire countries.
As food and beverages are increasingly becoming one of the main reasons for travel, Ayutthaya is attempting in
a big way to combine food, local souvenirs and culture into a total tourism experience – which should be authentic and
reflecting the local and unique flavors of a particular areas of the province. Potential in competitive of gastronomy
tourism in Ayutthaya niche market has the strength point related to the variety of authentic multicultural products in the
sense of cuisine. Thus, TAT has supported and sustained the emergence of gastronomy tourism in Ayutthaya as an
emergence of cultural resource.