THE RECOMMENDATION OF HEALTHY TOURISM ROUTES FOR ELDERLY IN KHAOKHO DISTRICT, PHETCHABUN PROVINCE BY USING ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

Abstract

This research aimed 1) to survey information on routes and deciding factors of health tourism attractions in Khaokho District, Phetchabun Province 2) to develop a health tourism guidance system for the elderly in Khaokho District, Phetchabun Province by using an analytical hierarchical process  method and 3) to assess the effectiveness of the system. The samples for collecting data were 10 health tourism specialists and elderly tourists selected by the purposive sampling method for collecting knowledge and assessing AHP application and 50 elderly tourists for assessing satisfaction with the AHP application. The research instruments for collecting data were the questionnaire for surveying the route data and decision factors, the questionnaire for assessing the tourism route selection by the system and the specialists, and the questionnaire for assessing the users’ satisfaction with the system. The statistics for analyzing data used frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and content analysis. The results showed 7 destinations for the health tourism route. AHP model for decision making was divided into 3 levels based on the 5ASM concept as 7 criteria. The system development consisted of 3 functions; inserting and calculating the weights, ranking the suitable tour places for the elderly, and showing the tour places information. The system showed that the ranking of tourism routes/ places has accuracy by the specialists for the 3 rankings at 75% and the 5 rankings at 71.43%. The users have satisfaction with the system in overview at a high level.