Publication Code: Y92D
by Supachit Manopimoke
Tourism has made crucial contributions to the development of the Thai economy. The tourism industry has generated many employment opportunities and social benefits. It has also been a major source of revenue and foreign exchange earnings for Thailand since 1982. Today,s Thailand is one of the world's most popular holiday destination. Revenue from tourism increased from 21 billion baht in 181 to 110 billion baht in 1990. The number of international tourists grew from 2 million to 5.2 million over the same period.
This growing and enormous trade in tourism has not been achieved without far-reaching environmental consequences. To a large degree, Thailand has based the growth of tourism on the exploitation of natural resources. For over two decades, tourism development proceeded ad hoc, responding to demand with little or no planning or coordination. As a result, pollution and environmental degradation are unnecessarily present at a number of major tourist destinations. In some tourist resorts, the severity of environmental degradation is so severe that it has brought about a decline in tourism.
As tourism's impact on the environment is more and more the tourism industry's major problem for maintaining growth or in maintaining the status quo. The appropriateness of existing tourism policy has become an important development issue in recent years. Whether the industry should shift its pattern of growth from quantity to quality, i.e., from exploiting to maintaining the natural systems which the industry itself is dependent on, will depend on the costs of shifting to an alternative policy.
This study took Pattaya, the most famous and popular beach resort in Thailand, as a case study to explore the consequences of environmental degradation and its impacts on the tourist industry. It is expected that the findings from this study will provide policy insights for the future direction of tourism development.
The objectives of the study are as follows:
(1) to examine tourism's impact on the environment in Pattaya
(2) to assess the gains from tourism growth and cost of environmental degradation and protection in Pattaya and
(3) to provide policy insights for the future direction of tourism development.
November 1992