A study of English for communication to enhance the tourism information: a case study of Klonghae Floating Market, Hat Yai, Songkla

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to study the context of Klonghae Floating Market which relates to the potentiality to become internationally known market including studying information services to promote the market to the world tourism standard. The foreign tourist satisfaction with information services was conducted (September 2010-August 2012). The SPSS/PC was used in the analysis of data, percentage, arithmetic mean and S.D. The descriptive analysis of related data was also presented. It was found that the context of Klonghae Floating Market to communicate in English for facility in the resources and activities: the signs of the tourist location, the warning signs and the leaflet, and the market destination in the form of brochures and the Internet. It was found that most of the information at Klonghae Floating Market was written in Thai with little English. The information on the leaflet and brochures was written in both Thai and English. In addition, the information on the Internet was mostly written in Thai posted by the tourists. The researchers designed 3 types of English information: the Internet, the facility signs, leaflets and brochures. The level of satisfaction of the tourists for the Internet was at moderate level. The facility signs’ satisfaction was at low level. Finally, the satisfaction with the information on the leaflets and brochures was also at low level. Most of the foreign tourists got the information about Klonghae Floating Market from mouth to mouth (40%) and from tour company/hotel (33%) respectively. The suggestions and recommendations to improve the quality of the Market were the management of information and the tourism resources. It was suggested that Malay and Mandarin languages should be included in the information services.