Tourism development and the effects on local communities : a case study of Ko Chang

Abstract

Ko Chang has been recognised as being one of the last and most picturesque islands in Thailand yet to be degraded by the tourism industry. However, over the past six years of development, Ko Chang has suffered a number of problems relating to its local communities and environment. It would seem that Ko Chang is being developed too fast resulting in several negative effects. The objectives of this thesis are to firstly investigate the development of tourism on Ko Chang, secondly evaluate the impacts of development, thirdly to evaluate the resident’s attitudes towards the development and fourthly to discuss the benefits and problems tourism has brought to Ko Chang at the expense of development. Secondary data was acquired from source documents, travel magazines, official guidebooks, text books, web pages, newspapers CD ROMs and VCDs. Questionnaires were administered to local residents and interviews with tourist personnel in both public and private sectors were carried out. The findings of this study indicate that since 2001, tourism development on Ko Chang has been the source of many complaints and conflicts between local people, national park officers and other government organisations. Unfortunately a lot of the concerns of the local people have not been addressed which has created a lot of unrest in the community. Many issues have arisen concerning the developments and there is a fear that these issues will only get worse. The research indicates that the majority of local people on Ko Chang are in favour of these developments as long as they are controlled in a sustainable manner and take equal account of the needs of local people rather than just the tourists. Therefore a greater participation with local communities is required, whilst a concentration on environment preservation and the natural resources of Ko Chang becomes of paramount importance. This study hopes to contribute to raising awareness of the effects that these developments have on the lives of the local inhabitants and the environment on Ko Chang.