THE STATE OF SPORTS TOURISM MANAGEMENT IN THE ANDAMAN TOURISM CLUSTER: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY

Parichat Pragobmas

doi:10.53848/vvjournal.v9i1.3215

Authors

Parichat Pragobmas Faculty of Education, Phuket Rajabhat University, Thailand

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53848/vvjournal.v9i1.3215

Keywords:

Sports Tourism Management, Andaman Tourism Cluster, Community Involvement, Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Few sectors in global tourism have grown as quickly as sports tourism, yet no prior study has systematically examined the state of sports tourism management within the Andaman Tourism Cluster—Thailand’s largest and most economically significant tourism region, covering six provinces: Krabi, Trang, Phang Nga, Phuket, Ranong, and Satun. This study set out to examine sports tourism management across five dimensions: purpose, participants, settings, impacts, and support needs. A mixed-methods design was used, drawing on a questionnaire completed by 384 residents and semi-structured interviews with 30 purposively sampled sports tourism stakeholders. Questionnaire data were analyzed using descriptive statistics; interview data were analyzed through thematic content analysis. Residents rated sports tourism management at a high level across all five dimensions. Sports competition and recreational activities stood out as the most prominent purposes; natural sports venues ranked highest among setting types; and economic impacts were the most visible dimension. Partnerships and community involvement topped the list of development support needs. Together, the results support established frameworks for sports tourism management and offer evidence-based direction across five priority areas: expanding competitive events and nature-based recreational programming, engaging the full range of participant types, leveraging the cluster’s exceptional coastal settings, addressing the gap between economic and cultural impact awareness, and building multi-stakeholder governance structures to meet expressed community support needs—providing a practical foundation for more sustainable and inclusive sports tourism strategies across the Andaman cluster and comparable coastal destinations.

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