Background to the challenge
Tha Ton is a small town located in the north of Chiang Mai province in Thailand, and is the nearest settlement to the Maekok River Village centre where the workshop is being held. It sits on the banks of the Maekok River and on the main road from Chiang Mai which is over three hours away (180km). Wikipedia describes it as home to a small number of expats and a place were a few people might hang out for a few days on their journey northwards. It is possible to take a boat from Tha Ton to Chiang Rai, some three hours away. Although the centre of Tha Ton is relatively small the incorporated area surrounding it has a sprawling population of over 20,000 people. Local attractions are listed in Wikipedia the river and various river journeys; the local Buddhist monasteries such as Wat Tha Ton; the hots springs nearby; the open air market; and a small number of local restaurants and cafes.
The challenge
Most tourists visiting northern Thailand past through Tha Ton without ever stopping, or stop for a very short amount of time without experiencing any of its charms or features. This challenge is from the local community of Tha Ton who have commissioned you to come up with ideas of how to encourage more tourists and visits to stay longer and preferably ‘one more day’. They want to know how they could improve the local environment, facilities and infrastructure to encourage more tourism and in particular, how they could utilise tourist’s own mobile devices to achieve this. The challenge will involve collecting data from tourists using your own mobile devices, identifying features of the town that could be improved to attract more visitors and presenting this in a format that tourist would use on their own mobile device. At the current time there is nothing that tourists can use like this and the next best thing is a paper based map of the town which is reproduced below.
The participants addressing this challenge are:
To see how they have addressed this challenge, you should visit their Group Page:
Challenge 3 - Tourism and heritage in Thaton |