The Impact of Gastronomic Tourism on Thailand Economy: Under the Situation of COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

With the COVID-19 pandemic’s complexity and inexorable devastation, this research article attempts to forecast Thailand’s economic move forward through gastronomic tourism promotion. The dynamic input-output (I-O) model was the primary method for classifying gastronomic activities in tourism I-O data, which was investigated sector by sector. The Ministry of Tourism and Sports in Bangkok, Thailand, officially gathered the 2017 I-O table. To briefly explain the empirical results, it found that the main sectors of gastronomic tourism that highly impact Thailand’s economy are the processing and preserving of foods, other foods, food and beverage serving activities, and other food services. In terms of forecasting during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bayesian Structural Time Series (BSTS) based on the dynamic input-output (I-O) model suggests that approximately 1% to 2% of Thailand’s gastronomic tourism will be able to contribute to the GDP of this country substantially. By the way, if this research result is significant, then both the private sector and the government sector need to be concerned and promote those sectors as much as they can.