Guidelines for responsible tourism development based on creating shared value towards society in active beach tourism cluster, Thailand

Abstract

The objectives of this research are to 1) To explore the hotel industry perspectives on responsible tourism, 2) To study the causal factors of the hotel industry in adapting the responsible tourism concept to the idea of creating value for society, and 3) To propose the guidelines for responsible tourism development based on creating shared value towards society in Active Beach Tourism Cluster, Thailand

The research design was a mixed methodology combining the quantitative and qualitative research. For the quantitative method, the data was collected from online questionnaires 197 hotels with 580 respondents in the target provinces: Chonburi, Rayong, Trat and Chanthaburi. The respondents were staff in to 5- and 4-star hotel establishments. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with 6 dimensions including 1) Extrinsic Motivation (9 Indicators), 2) Business Value (8 Indicators). 3) Intrinsic Motivation (7 Indicators), 4) Perceived Benefits of CSV (9 Indicators), 5) Social Responsibilities (10 Indicators), 6) Intention to Create CSV (9 Indicators). And after performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the indicators, the overall construct reliability for all constructs reveals have acceptable scores within an acceptable range of factor loading (0.3 and above). The model fit indices present, including Chi-square (465.207), df (209), CFI (0.992), TLI (0.975), RMSEA (0.046), SRMR (0.049).

The scope of this qualitative research is studying the perspectives of hoteliers (working for four- to five-star hotels) and community leaders in the Active Beach tourism cluster, through documents, research articles, academic journals, and field data collected from key informants. A total of 13 individuals were interviewed, including 5 hoteliers and 8 community leaders. The fieldwork was conducted in Active Beach Tourism Cluster during October – December 2020.

The study was carried out via survey research, where data were collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews, subjected to qualitative content analysis and online questionnaires. To answer research questions 1) What are the hotel industry perspectives on responsible tourism? The study findings demonstrated that hotel operators have a responsible view on tourism. This view is based on positively good deeds that start with the self and are enhanced by the efforts of stakeholders. 2) What are the causal factors of the hotel industry in adapting the responsible tourism concept to the idea of creating value for society? The study findings demonstrated the causal factors are extrinsic motivation, business value, intrinsic motivation, perceived benefits of CSV, social responsibilities, and intention to create CSV. 3) How should the guidelines for responsible tourism development based on creating shared value towards society in Active Beach Tourism Cluster, Thailand be? The following issues are addressed: strategies to strengthen the Eastern region tourism network, strategies to promote responsible tourism based on CSV for society in the Eastern region, strategies for promoting the standards of products and services in tourism and hospitality, and strategies for developing potential human capital in the tourism and hospitality industry.