THE ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF TOURISM IN THAILAND

Abstract

Tourism is considered to be an important sector in the Thai economy. Moreover, the importance of the environment and social issues is minimal in the tourism development of Thailand. There are the three main objectives of the study. Firstly, the important factors affecting the consumption behavior of tourists should be determined. Secondly, the foreign tourist consumption relates to the environment. Finally, this study is to evaluate the impact of tourism. The results indicate that non-food and lodging are luxury goods according to their expenditure elasticities. Eating out, non-food, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, transport, and lodging places are complementary according to their price elasticities. Total inbound tourism expenditure significant influences on carbon dioxide emissions from transport. The tourism expenditure has a positive relationship with carbon dioxide emissions from transport while the carbon dioxide emissions from the power generation sectors and the cost of wastewater management for tourists are not affected by the tourism expenditure. The simulation results reveal that an increase in inbound tourism expenditure results in the positive impact on the economy of Thailand because of an increase in GDP, the price level, total exports from tourism, total imports, foreign savings and government revenue, consumption, production, total output, the demand for labor and the return on primary factors, while there is a decrease in total income without tourism. For social impacts of tourism, rural households are beneficiaries of the increase in tourism expenditure in terms of income and consumption. For environmental impact of tourism, CO2 emissions from transport are significant from the increase in tourism expenditure. Results indicate that the economic and social effects of are greater than the environmental effect.