Local residents’ perceptions towards economic impacts of tourism development in Phuket

Tourism in general has become one of the major cultural and economic forces in the world today, and is regarded as an important means to benefit local communities. Phuket for example has experienced tremendous development since 1980s. Many construction projects are carried out on the islands with only one purpose: to accommodate tou-rism development. Rapid investments by the government and private sector had significantly turned Phuket into a popular destination and a shopping haven for local and foreign tourists. However, despite the rapid development in this industry, the economic and socio-cultural impacts of tourism were hardly discussed and explained in academic literature. Therefore, a study on Phuket Islands, Thailand was conducted to explore and identify economic impacts of tourism development to the islands and local residents. A household survey based on stratified random sampling was conducted in Phuket for 3 weeks. 393 questionnaires were completed from 399 respondents approached; representing a 99% response rate for this study. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using principal component analysis was carried out to identify the respondents’ perception of the impacts from tourism development. Findings from data analysis identified four factors representing 55.63% of the explained variance extracted from 18 variables, namely: 1. Economic benefits, 2. Higher living costs, 3. Economic costs, and 4. Supports local economy. Findings from data analysis suggested that tourism development in Phuket has provided more benefits than costs to the residents