Participation of Local Stakeholders at Ban Chiang World Heritage Site

Abstract

This article deals with the empowerment of local residents and the economic development of the World Heritage (WH) site at Ban Chiang, Thailand, a prehistoric necropolis dating back to the first millennium BC. The site itself was added to the WH list in 1992, with the intention of safeguarding it from further looting by local inhabitants through the possible combination of restrictive laws and tourism-generated income. To ascertain the success of those policies three decades later, tourism activities and local community participation have been assessed in this study through GIS spatial analysis and a questionnaire survey based on the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale (RETS). The spatial analysis shows that no tourism activity has developed within the heritage property, which remains unvisited by tourists, while the questionnaire survey confirms that tourism and the related income potential for Ban Chiang residents are limited, but they are proud of the fact that Ban Chiang is a WH site, and strongly support tourism. The other negative aspects are the lack of political participation by the local community, and the lack of tourism skills, both of which limit any possible further development of the site. Based on such results, a theoretical framework for sustainable heritage development derived from Landorf 's research is elaborated in this study, employing all the various stages of sustainable heritage development and analysis tools from site assessment to the planning and development stages.