PONE-D-23-22531Safety and Health Measures Compliance during the COVID-19 Pandemic for Community-Based Tourism in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive StudyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bumyut,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Lóránt Dénes Dávid, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments :

Dear Apirak Bumyut, M.Sc,

Our decision: Major revision.

Based on 4 reviews.

Sinderely yours,

Lorant Denes David

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The study deals with a very current issue, which is particularly prominent in the investigated area. The objective of the research is clear and well defined. At the same time, the scientific foundation of the research is less visible. I recommend a more prominent presentation of the literature review chapter in the study. The methodology of the research is relevant to the realization of the set goals, therefore I accept the results obtained. At the same time, I recommend strengthening the visualization of the results, using figures instead of difficult-to-understand tables. Overall, a good quality study, minor revision is required.

Reviewer #2: This study focuses on the level of knowledge and practices of entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 period, using a questionnaire survey as the research method. Unfortunately, the conclusions of this manuscript are commonplace and can be deduced through intuition without the need for research. For example, the author mentions that the low compliance rate among entrepreneurs is due to a lack of understanding and motivation to comply with standards, which is obvious. Therefore, I believe that this manuscript lacks a unique conclusion or viewpoint to support its publication, and the data from only 33 questionnaires is insufficient to support this conclusion.

Furthermore, this manuscript has some structural and logical flaws that need to be revised, as follows:

The introduction section provides limited discussion on the logic and relationship of the content related to Thai community tourism, COVID-19, and the knowledge and practices of entrepreneurs.

The Ethics Statement is not suitable to appear in the Materials and Methods section; it should be included as formatted text at the end of the manuscript, before the references.

Another flaw of this study is that the chosen research areas do not demonstrate uniqueness or universality. Why did the author select these three regions? Additionally, the author collected only 33 questionnaire responses from these three communities, and it is currently difficult to believe that these data are sufficient to support the conclusion. The author should provide the content of the questionnaire in the supporting documents, as there seems to be a discrepancy between the number and structure of the questionnaire items and the amount of data collected.

The handling of questionnaire data in this study is also preliminary, with little consideration given to factor structure and relationships.

Reviewer #3: The authors selected an actual but challenging topic for their research. Challenging, as the relation of community tourism and pandemic measures is controversial and hard to control the introduction and use of regulations. I regard the paper as original as both the approach and the selected methodology are unique and gap filling.

The structure and the execution of the research is acceptable. My main problem is that in fact there is no literature review in the manuscript, so it is quite a technical paper and hard to understand the context and the need for this particular research.

Some sources are mentioned in the Introduction chapter but is is far not enough. I recommend to write a separate literature review where the different international sources are critically analysed, e.g. https://doi.org/10.21003/ea.V185-08

The implication of the research results are not indicated.

The limitations of the research are not indicated.

Reviewer #4: The topic of the paper is relevant and interesting, but very special. Authors used related literature sources and cited them correctly. Most part of them are from the last few years, but I suggest them to restructure the paper and separated literature review and improve it with further connecting sources.

There were a lot of difficulties and new circumstances based on COVID-19. That was the reason that the purpose of the paper was to evaluate levels of knowledge, practice, and compliance regarding safety and health measures of the entrepreneur in managing CBT under the Safety and Health Administration (SHA) standard in the new normal situation.

In their paper they analysed 34 entrepreneurs from 3 subdistricts – (11) rural fishing-, (8) sub-urban orchard- and (14) rural mountain community – in Nakhon Si Tammarat province in 2021 between February and May.

They used correct methods which helped them to introduce their results. Figures and tables are informative and increase the value of the paper.

I appreciate their results and conclusions which contain both theoretical and practical remark for the future.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

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PONE-D-23-22531R1Safety and Health Measures Compliance during the COVID-19 Pandemic for Community-Based Tourism in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive StudyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Apirak Bumyut,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 29 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Lóránt Dénes Dávid, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Minor revision based on reviewers' evaluation.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #5: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: Dear Authors,

I have completed a thorough review of your paper and find it to be relevant and generally aligned with scientific writing norms. However, I recommend major revisions to enhance its overall quality. Below, I have outlined my observations and recommendations:

Title: I suggest shortening the current title.

Abstract: The abstract is well-written. However, I encourage you to remove the structured abstract format (background, methods, results, conclusion). Your abstract lacks a brief description of the methodology used, and consider formatting the results to interpretations for demystifying your findings.

Introduction: To align with scientific norms and standards, I suggest restructuring the introduction section. It should include a general overview of the topic, relevant previous studies, a brief methodology description, brief findings, theoretical contributions, managerial implications, and a clear statement of the research gap you intend to address. The final paragraph should outline the paper structure.

Literature Review: While the literature review is well-structured, I recommend adding additional studies highlighting different perspectives on the topic, especially research conducted in the ASEAN context. Many sentences and statements should be justified in this section.

Methodology: While your chosen research method aligns with the paper's objectives and is well-detailed, it lacks sufficient description and justification for the techniques used.

Results and Discussion: The results are well-presented. In the discussion section, I recommend offering necessary comparisons with previous studies.

Conclusion: The conclusion should succinctly summarize the main contributions of the research in advancing knowledge in the field and the main implications.

References: Consider adding recent references, mainly from reputable journals Q1 and Q2.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #5: No

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Safety and Health Measures Compliance during the COVID-19 Pandemic for Community-Based Tourism in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study

PONE-D-23-22531R2

Dear Dr. Bumyut,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Lóránt Dénes Dávid, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: