The Determinants of Tourist Expenditure Per Capita in Thailand: Potential Implications for Sustainable Tourism

Wanvilai Chulaphan and Jorge Fidel Barahona
Additional contact information
Wanvilai Chulaphan: Faculty of Economics, Maejo University, Chiang Mai 50290, Thailand
Jorge Fidel Barahona: Faculty of Economics, Maejo University, Chiang Mai 50290, Thailand

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: Tourism authorities in Thailand have consistently pursued profit-seeking mass tourism, resulting in the detriment of the natural resources in major tourist destinations. In response, sustainable tourism projects centered on preserving the environment have been established but neglect the financial needs of tour operators. The objective of this study was to investigate the determinants of tourist expenditure per capita in Thailand using a dataset consisting of 31 countries from 2010 to 2017. The analysis was based on an autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and used a panel estimated generalized least square (ELGS). Generating such knowledge is essential for tourist authorities to develop profitable and sustainable tourism projects in tourist destinations whose natural resources have been affected by profit-seeking tourism. The tourism expenditure per capita is positively affected by word of mouth, income, and the rising prices in other major tourist destinations in Asia. However, it was negatively affected by relative levels of price and corruption. Sustainable tourism projects can be used to develop activities that will help distinguish Thailand from other tourism destinations in Asia. However, in implementing these sustainable tourism initiatives, the mark-up should be minimized to keep tourist prices in Thailand competitive.

Keywords: tourism demand; tourism expenditure per capita; sustainable tourism; tourist price (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/12/6550/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/12/6550/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:12:p:6550-:d:571253

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().