Abstract

This study examines the characteristics, management guidelines as well as the outcomes ecotourism management has achieved at Khao Pu – Khao Ya national park. The research conducted by using both qualitative and quantitative research. Whereas in-depth interviews, conducted from stakeholders including the national park officers, tourists, and rural communities, were used for qualitative data collection in order to study the realistic details for the park management, questionnaires were used for quantitative data collection. By analyzing data, the descriptive statistics; frequency, percentage, and standard deviation were used for quantitative data and content analysis was used for qualitative data. Results from the study showed that the national park have outstanding image with rainforest, caves, and waterfalls including many species of plants and wild animals. It showed the same idea among the national park officers, tourists, and local people that the national park was plentiful and readiness for ecotourism. The types of ecotourism were including both small group and popular ecotourism while tourists could visit the national park every season. The most popular activity was cave tour and not more than 200 tourists can stay over the night at the park. Nevertheless, most of them visited the park for relaxation and stayed for only one night. The result of ecotourism management showed the success of managing the area to meet its objectives. For activities and learning aspect, the national parks set the program related to their area characteristics and created tourist satisfaction. On the other hand, people who live around the area were less cooperates with the national park management. Moreover, the research found the problems and obstacles that affected to the national park management such as the park invasion, the forest encroachment, plant and wild animal stolen. Even the tourists, who had thrown garbage away in the prohibit area or stolen the park properties, were unaware of the effect to the park. Thus, it was necessary to improve the national park management in order to get the better results in the future. The recommendation from the study, firstly, the government should support more officers adequate to the area. Secondly, the government should set the regulations to solve the problem of the areas that overlap with the agricultural land. Thirdly, the strict regulations regarding the prohibit behaviors in the national park should be conducted. Lastly, local communities should have a chance to be more participate in the national park management. Further studies should be conducted to find out the identifications of the park and presented to public.