Political Economy on National Maritime Benefits of Thailand: A Case Study of Promoting Policies of Marine and Coastal Tourism in Thailand During 2003-2018

Abstract

The thesis aimed to study the process of promoting policies of marine and coastal tourism in the topics of roles and processes of national maritime advantages of advantages groups driving into the policies of marine and coastal tourism in Thailand during 2003-2018. The researcher established the framework by applying from theory of Thailand economic policy determination process which divided the interactions between the participator in driving the policies into 4 groups which were world capitalism, the supper structure of the economy, demand and supply of the policies using state economy theory. It explained government’s behavior with direct impacts towards policies determination. The interest group theory was used to explain the behavior of the interest group with the influence in driving the policies. The result found that the promoting policies of marine and coastal tourism in Thailand started to be more concrete in 2003 under the national tourism promote policy “Unseen in Thailand. New perspective of Thailand”. The policy launched 48 tourist attractions in Thailand which 11 of them were maritime and coastal attractions. The project was found with the objective to stimulate the drive of domestic demand to relieve economic problems as the world’s economy had not yet fully recovered from the Tom Yam Kung crisis in 1997. Moreover, there were also the tension from war condition between the United States of America and Iraq. The mentioned project was highly successful in term if economy making tremendous income for the country. As a result, there was the annual maritime and coastal tourism promoting project until today. However, the policies of marine and coastal tourism did not cause as much maritime and coastal advantages for Thai people as it should. The reason was the previous promoting policies from mainly interest group such as aviation business, groups of tourism business entrepreneurs, hotel groups and restaurant groups which most of them were foreign capital groups. Therefore, the land owners who were Thai people did not receive as much benefits as they should. Moreover, the increasing amount of the tourists in the area of maritime and coastal lacked of the supervisor on the suitable access for the facility resulting in the deterioration of natural resources and coastal environment both quality and quantity.