published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

No description available.

This study explored the attitudes of hotel managers in Phuket, Thailand, in an attempt to identify whether their attitudes influence their utilization of environmental sustainability practices. Due to the increasing number of visitors to Phuket, Thailand, the consumption of natural resources has increased in the region, causing serious environmental problems. A sustainable way forward is needed for the tourism industry in the region in order to maintain quality of service while reducing environmental damage. The data analyzed in this study came from self-administered questionnaires that surveyed hotel managers in Phuket, Thailand, with a sample of 243 respondents. Research results revealed three dimensions of hotel manager attitude toward environmental sustainability practices, including operational management, social obligation, and sustainability strategy and policy. Furthermore, three constraints on the implementation of environmental management practices were identified: lack of support, perceived difficulty, and lack of demand. The attitudes of hotel managers regarding specific factors and barriers are also presented in this study. The results of this study show that hotel managers overall possess positive attitudes toward environmental sustainability practices. Finally, the findings reveal that hotel managers’ attitudes toward sustainability practices depend on their social demographics, the type of hotel they operate, their degree of ownership of the hotel, whether or not their hotel was affected by the 2004 tsunami, and the year their hotel was built. The results of this study suggest that it is necessary for hotel managers to understand the importance of environmental sustainability practices because this understanding can help motivate them in implementing sustainability practices in their hotels. Furthermore, it can guide hotel managers when deciding which environmental policies are suitable for their iv hotels. Lastly, the study demonstrated that in order for hotels to become more sustainable, support is needed from government or hotel associations to provide education and training for the hotel managers.

Uppsatsen syftar till att identifiera livsstilsmigranters identitetsskapande och skapandet av infrastruktur genom att analysera migrationsprocessen och det vardagliga livet på destinationen. Fokus ligger på svenska livsstilsmigranter som är antingen permanent boende, återvändare, säsongsmigranter eller ambulerande besökare på Phuket. Genom att angripa syftet med ett transnationalistiskt perspektiv visar uppsatsen att migrationsprocessen och identitetsskapandet är konstant föränderligt utan definitivt slut. Empirimaterialet består av kvalitativa intervjuer med svenskar som livsstilsmigrerat till Phuket samt observationer i Patong och Kamala beach. Livsstilsmigration till värmen har pågått under flera årtionden men flödena av livsstilsmigranter till Thailand är relativt nya och lite forskning om dessa flöden har bedrivits.  Det svenska transnationella nätverket har byggt upp en infrastruktur på Phuket som tar sig form i en svensk grundskola, svenska kyrkan, lokaltidningar på svenska samt flertalet svenskägda hotell och restauranger som serverar skandinavisk mat. Svenskarna som intervjuades sade sig må bra och leva ett gott liv men vardagen kantas av oro för de visum- och bostadslagar som kan sätta käppar i hjulen för de som vill stanna i Thailand. Även om svenskarna tycker mycket bra om thailändare och uppskattar den goda service och de leenden de får så gör språksvårigheter att de är misstänksamma mot dem och hellre tyr sig till andra livsstilsmigranter.

Tsunami action had resulted in negative impacts in many ways, it had resulted in great changes to coastal areas, especially in terms of physical change to the coastal landscape, affected on economy, loss of life and physical damage to property. After the devastation, hotel bookings in the island were dropped, people have lost their jobs and some small-scale tourism businesses have got the hardest time as well. Some lifestyle entrepreneurs felt hopeless and have given up on doing business, which resulted to their businesses had to be closed because they were unable to access financial resources and did not have budget to restart their businesses again. Some might take longer time to rehabilitate their firms due to various limitations and conditions. While some have to fight back and develop their firms by turning crisis into opportunity and taking advantage of the crisis. This research is made in order to study and examine the impacts of and the recovery to the 2004 December tsunami disaster in Phuket, especially to small tourism businesses in Karon beach, which will be described through a disaster management model. The goal of this research is to study how the tsunami has affected on small firms and how they performed in order to rehabilitate their businesses, and even how they have been working and cooperating with the local government to draw back tourists to the destination.