In Thailand, agriculture is considered as the
backbone of the country. It helps generating national
income but Thailand has recognized that the
development of agriculture is a more difficult process
as in many countries, unemployment and the number
of landless laborers have grown and real wage rates in
agriculture have fallen. The government continually
tries to solve the problem. Hence, the most important
national strategy at present is to eliminate poverty,
especially that in the rural areas. In order to gain a
great amount of income from tourism, locals have to
set up the idea of agro-tourism which is a kind of
ecotourism, based on a philosophy of sustainable
development. Tourists will learn the way of life and
culture of people living in communities through the
agro-tourism. So agro-tourism is in trend of national
strategy. In addition, it needs community involvement
since it will enable participation from the local
community in the development and operations of
tourism with their consent and support. Another
important feature is that a reasonable share of the
revenues are enjoyed by the community. This type of
tourism also maintains and respects the local culture,
heritage and traditions.
Saraburi, one of the central provinces of
Thailand, the province of historical sites, the holy
footprint, the beauty of nature, and famous food, is
located on the east side of the Chao Phraya river
valley which is 108 kilometers from Bangkok. Main
agricultural products are rice, sugar cane, corn,
sunflower, cattle and poultry. Travelling to and around
Saraburi could be made in one day. Daoruang subdistrict
consists of 7 villages near Pasak River and has
been developed to be an agro-touritic area in 2007.
The chairman of the sub-district and the owner of
cultural center worked together with the people in the
community to develop a floating market during the
weekend by asking some budget from the government
in order to become a small tourist attraction in the
community. It was found that the community
members lacked knowledge in tourism services and
management. In addition, there were several local
products distributed to tourists that helped people to
earn more income but they didn‘t know how to
improve the quality of services for tourists. Therefore,
training programs on how to develop and manage an
agro-tourism to be sustainable agro-tourism should be
offered