A Synthesis of Meang Virtue in the Relationship among Mae Kampong People, Forest Ecosystem and Meang System to Transform to Sustainable Tourism Value: Ban Mae Kampong, Huay Kaew Sub-District, Mae On District, Chiang Mai Province
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Abstract
Alternative tourism for sustainability has been in operation, but not truly successful, because of the lack of effective concepts. This research, therefore, reviews and analyzes a new concept using localization as a platform and selects a prominent local capital as a powerful tourism resource. Further, it investigates and synthesizes deeper into the ‘virtue’, a powerful driving operation of the capital independent from controls of capitalism and globalization. To become a promising alternative tourism, this research tests this concept by inventing an innovative package and community-based management to transform the ‘virtue’ into the ‘value’ of this tourism resource.
This research uses Mae Kampong, one of the famous tourist attractions in Chiang Mai, but without appropriate concepts, as the case study. Within a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, qualitative, quantitative and spatial methodologies are employed in a two-fold purpose. Firstly, the analysis of components and conditions guiding holistic operations of the Meang system is the prominent local capital. Secondly, interrelationships between three main components, forest ecology, Meang production, and socio-cultural aspects of Meang people are synthesized using logical fitness of operations and their utilities for derivation of the ‘virtue’. Finally, findings from such analyses are used as a conceptual guide for inventing and testing a community-based tourism package as the transformation into the value of this resource.
This research finds that Meang system at Mae Kampong has been sustainable from balanced interactions among the three main components, resulting in good production of Meang, ecological balance of forest, and sufficient socio-cultural livelihood. From synthesis of ‘virtue’, it finds that the thinking system leading to on-going operation is the combination of long adaptation of local wisdom through learning process. This thinking system has been the core guiding power for maintaining the balance of the three interrelated components and the impacts on livelihood of the Meang people. In addition, the observable holistic utility from which the Meang people benefit, is good mental and physical health with long life span. When tourist packages are invented such as the ‘Natural Therapy’ tourism scheme, the value of this capital has the capacity to flow on as tourists from the big cities come to appreciate the balance of these three components to recharge their battery lives.
The new concept that this research proposes and tests is an attempt to open the new dimension of sustainable tourism managed by community. Its implication requires more sample sites to test the concept, and more and effective adoption and action to materialize such a tourism scheme by policy makers and tourism supporting organizations in the future.
Keywords: Virtue, Meang System, Mae Kampong People, Tourism Resource, Sustainable Tourism
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