Developing the Cultural Heritage of Nyah-Kur Inhabitants as a Cultural Village Tourism and Sustainable Learning Center in Chaiyaphum, Thailand

Abstract—Nyah Kul is a group of tribe, which means “people of the forest”. The Thais call them Chaobon, meaning “people of the hills”. The Nyah Kul consider this latter term derogatory. Due to integration into Thai society, the number of speakers of Nyah Kul language is rapidly decreasing and some predict the language will become extinct within the next century. The majority of Nyah Kul are in Chaiyaphum province where is located in the north eastern of Thailand or I-san region. Most live in mixed villages with Isan and Thai people. The village of Nyah Kul attracted many tourists to see their culture every day. It becomes the charming destination for the tourists to visit and find the story of place that link with traditional and way of life. The tourists can get special experiences through the tourism activities from local people. At the same time, locals can get more income and pride of their cultural. For this paper, the researcher used in-depth interviews and focus group as an instrument to understand the perspective of local people and tourism stakeholders. The results of this study confirm that Nyah Kul village has potential to be developed as a Cultural Village Tourism and Sustainable Learning Center. Moreover, tourism activities such as; cotton weaving, walking around the village, and attend their local festival should be promoted for upgrading tourism products. It also enables visitors to have cultural experience in the village.

Index Terms—Cultural village, hill tribe, learning center, tourism.

A. Jamnongchob, K. Saowapawong, J. Junead, and U. Tuntates are with the Faculty of Environmental Culture and Ecotourism, Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand (e-mail: angsumalin@g.swu.ac.th, kingkanok@g.swu.ac.th, jutatipj@g.swu.ac.th, unchun@g.swu.ac.th).

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Cite: Angsumalin Jamnongchob, Kingkanok Saowapawong, Jutatip Junead, and Unchun Tuntates, "Developing the Cultural Heritage of Nyah-Kur Inhabitants as a Cultural Village Tourism and Sustainable Learning Center in Chaiyaphum, Thailand," International Journal of Culture and History vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-4, 2016.