The Relationship Between Air Transport and Rural Tourism in Thailand

Abstract

This study used panel to identify the relationship between air transport and rural tourism in Thailand. The data covered eleven airports in Thailand from 2009 to 2018 (10 years). The airports are located in the eleven poorest provinces in the country, based on the gross provincial product per capita. The study included the total number of air traveler arrivals as the dependent variable and the total number of flight movements, provincial tourism revenue and the average monthly income per household as the independent variables, and used an autoregressive distributed lag model to identify the relationship between air transport and rural areas in Thailand. The results of the study indicate that increasing demand for air transport to rural provinces is significantly and positively generating an increasing number of flights and a decline in tourism revenue and household income in the eleven provinces in the long run. The development of the air transport industry alone is not enough to alleviate the income inequality; it is suggested that provincial governments need to develop the tourism industry and infrastructure further to bring greater benefits to society and to reduce income inequality in the country.