This study focuses on promoting high quality tourism from BRIC, specifically. The Thailand Tourism Department plans to support the development of this market. The eastern Thai provinces, have great tourism potential-Thailand Tourism Cluster (TCC), Active Beach. These provinces offer numerous, varied and unique activities to the tourist. The Thai Government has the budget for development, growth and improvement of tourism to high revenue potential for the health tourism industry and local community economies, in general. All parties received opportunity for all involvement in the process of drafting the strategic plan that would be recognized and applied in practice. The plan, as developed, recognizes that Thailand is an attractive target for high quality tourism. Health tourism development may have many beneficial consequences, both economic and environmental, for a destination. Research driven cluster is a development of a model to promote health-oriented, participatory and sustainable to cater to the provinces in the active beach. .

This chapter explores the approach of tourist destination governance with a focus on community-based tourism in Thailand. Through five case studies, the chapter explores a number of factors in the failure and success of community-based tourism development, and the importance of an integrated stakeholder approach in achieving potential success. These cases are then used to set forth guidelines for governance in countries with similar circumstances. While acknowledging the many challenges that Thailand has faced due to natural and political crises, the examples provide a constructive context for understanding the approaches and successes (as well as constraints) for rural- and community-based tourist destination development. After analysing and generalizing the cases, lessons learned are put forward regarding governance approaches, with particular emphasis on stakeholder involvement in creating more sustainable community-based rural destinations. These include the strengthening of local communities and their structures, effective decision-making processes, mechanisms for functional rural tourism communities, building collaborative networks, providing a mechanism for understanding both community and visitor needs fully, developing and monitoring benchmarking approaches and the provision of rural tourism product positioning, along with strategic sustainable planning including action plans, implementation and review. The chapter concludes by acknowledging the diversity of governance approaches and capacity building, as well as the balance needed between more universal solutions in addition to appreciation of the knowledge and local wisdom in rural tourist destinations.

Purpose This study aims to investigate the decision-making processes of international retirement migrants. The development of a place in response to the high demand for international retirement migration has become an important strategy for stakeholders within host destinations; of particular interest is international retirement migrant behaviour and intention to stay and retire in a foreign country. Design/methodology/approach This research presents the results of a qualitative study using face-to-face interview techniques. Content analysis technique was used to analyse data from interviews with 33 international retirees in Thailand. Findings Destination stakeholders must consider creating awareness of the destination through WOM, trustworthy websites and government channels, which migrants evaluate a destination based on pre-retirement visits that create attachment and emotional feelings for the place, and finally, the decision-making processes of short stay, semi-permanent and permanent migrants. Research limitations/implications This qualitative study investigated migrants from Europe, Australia and the USA. An understanding of IR migrants from Asia needs further research. Practical implications The results can be used as guidelines for government, hospitality and tourism stakeholders. IR migrants want different destination attributes to mainstream tourists, especially a peaceful environment, mild weather (not too cold or hot), and to live among locals. Originality/value This study examines migrant decision-making processes. The results provide a theoretical foundation for how IR migrants decide to retire overseas. This comprises three components: destination awareness, secondly, evaluation of the destination’s resources, and finally, the decision and implementation of their plans.

Purpose – This research aimed to examine the influences of key success factors on business growth. Additionally, it aimed to examine the moderating role of the location of the tourism enterprise. Design – Multiple regression was used and a variable selection tool was employed to test a statistical model both for the aggregate and in the context of individual provinces. Methodology – Quantitative research methods were used in this research. Approach – The convenience sampling method was used. Data was collected from fourhundred and nineteen tourism enterprises along the Andaman Coast in Thailand using online and in-person questionnaires. Findings – The results showed a positive influence of some dimensions of key success factors on business growth during the pandemic crisis COVID -19. In addition, the results showed that business location played a positive moderating role. Originality of the research – Key success factors are important concepts for business models to improve and increase the growth of a company. However, there are few studies that attempt to find out the key success factors in the context of tourism businesses that have been significantly affected by the COVID -19 pandemic. Therefore, this research aims to fill a gap in academic and practical discussions and implications.

Tourism is important and can generate economic growth for many countries, including Thailand. Since the government’s launch of the 55 Second-Tier Cities Tourism Destination Project, second-tier cities in Thailand have become tourist attractions. This study investigates linkages among carbon emissions, economic growth, tourism indicators, energy consumption and population in the 55 second-tier cities using annual data for the 2019-2017 period through panel dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method, the generalized method of moments (GMM) and Granger causality testing. The results show that energy consumption, per capita gross provincial product, the number of domestic and international tourists and the population size directly influence the carbon emissions level. The policy implications for second-tier cities include 1) increasing energy efficiency, for instance by installing alternative energy such as solar, wind and biofuel energy; 2) promoting loans with special interest rates to assist tourism entrepreneurs in providing energy-efficient products; 3) boosting public awareness of energy efficiency, energy savings and environmental pollution; 4) providing special funds and business tax refunds for those who reduce carbon emissions; 5) proactively promoting low-carbon tourism activity among tourists; and 6) introducing and enforcing environmental taxes.