ABSTRACT
Festivals and special events are well recognized for having a significant influence on the community, society, economics, and culture of the area. Among such festivals, particularly in Thailand, local food festival is the eminent one. Thailand is advancing as a Gastronomy Tourism Hub, offering everything from street food to international cuisine. The application of technology in event tourism, particularly in local food festivals where there is a huge amount of data, will be the solution to pave the way for such event management in terms of marketing, service providers, visitors’ behaviours, destination branding and improvement, and hotel accommodations as well as logistic and food supply issues. One of the application areas that is becoming increasingly important in supporting corporate choices is business intelligence (BI). This chapter investigates and explores the practical implications of BI and business analytics (BA) in the industry of tourism in Thailand. These were investigated using a case study from a local food festival in Thailand. Also, this case study reflects the contribution of technology application for understanding the most essential elements impacting visitors’ intent to return to the festival site, as well as the main qualities that influence visitor behaviour.
