A Management Model for Sport Fields and Facilities of Thailand

Abstract

Background. Today, the trend of maintaining good health and exercise has become very popular in Thailand, but from the document studied by the researcher, many sports facilities were abandoned. Some were not ready to use, and others were damaged. Objectives. This research aimed to study the actual conditions and expected conditions of people who used the field services, the equipment, and the sports facilities in Thailand's sports field and facilities management under the supervision of local administrative organizations and create their management model. Methods. This study utilized mixed-method research. The quantitative phase was characterized by an initial quantitative step of data collection through the questionnaire with 420 participants by selecting through the Multi-Stage sampling method and analyzed with the descriptive statistic and a T-test. In the qualitative phase with the focus group interview research method, 11 experts in sports facilities used purposive sampling with semi-structured interviews. Results. The quantitative process identified the seven components of the management model of field equipment and sports facilities in Thailand consisted of 1) Property; 2) Service; 3) Technology; 3) Security; 4) Maintenance; 5) Support; system; and 6) Sustainable Management, and the result found a significant relationship between the actual conditions and expected conditions towards the seven components (P < 0.05). The qualitative part confirmed the quantitative findings. Conclusion. The considerable gap difference between the actual and the expectation of the customers created the awareness of the policy makers to change something in a good way for developing all dimensions in the sports facility in Thailand. Nevertheless, the result of this research with the POLC principle could be helpful for the benefit of those policymakers in the field