Sustainable Tourism Development Through a Stakeholder-Based Quality of Life Assessment in Phuket, Thailand

Information from the abstract

Tourism-intensive cities must accommodate the needs of visitors while maintaining the quality of life (QOL) of residents and business stakeholders who share the same urban spaces, transport systems and services. This research examines multidimensional QOL in Phuket, Thailand, by integrating six domains: travel, travel quality, residential conditions, community participation, emotional well-being and tourism-related QOL. Face-to-face questionnaire surveys were conducted with 1203 respondents comprising tourists, residents and business stakeholders. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis were conducted separately for each stakeholder group to identify empirical QOL dimensions and distinct stakeholder profiles. The findings reveal substantial heterogeneity within all three groups. Most importantly, favorable perceptions of tourism, mobility or accessibility did not consistently coincide with equally favorable emotional or financial well-being, demonstrating that QOL in a tourism-intensive destination involves trade-offs across domains. The findings further indicate that stakeholder experiences are connected to accessibility to everyday activities, tourism services, residential conditions and the shared use of urban space. In Phuket, these patterns highlight the need to consider tourism development together with transport accessibility, land use and the spatial distribution of essential activities and services. The research contributes a profile-based, cross-stakeholder perspective that moves beyond aggregate destination satisfaction toward understanding how multiple QOL dimensions coexist within different users of the same tourism city. The findings provide a basis for more spatially and socially differentiated tourism, mobility and urban planning, while longitudinal and spatial analysis is required to establish causal relationships and assess how these profiles change over time.

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Related topics: Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · Place Attachment and Urban Studies · Urban Transport and Accessibility