Food Safety Management: Concerns from EU Tourists in Thailand

Authors: Kevin Wongleedee

Abstract:

Culinary culture differences can cause health problems for international tourists in Thailand. This paper drew upon data collected from an international tourist survey conducted in Bangkok, Thailand during summer of 2012. Summer is the period that a variety food safety issues and incidents are often publicized in Thailand. The survey targeted European Union tourists- concerns toward a variety of food safety issues that they encountered during their trip in Thailand. A total of 400 respondents were elicited as data input for t-test, and one way ANOVA test. The findings revealed an astonishing result that up to 46.5 percent of respondents were sick at least one time or more in Thailand. However, the majority of respondents trusted that the Thai hotel and Thai restaurants would ensure food safety, but they did not trust street vendors to ensure food safety. The level of food safety concern can be ranked from most concern to least concern by using the value of mean scores as follows: 1) artificial coloring, 2) use of preservatives, 3) antibiotics, 4) growth hormones, 5) chemical residues, and 6) bacterial contamination. The overall mean score for level of concerns was 3.493 with standard deviation of 1.677 which did not indicate a very high level of concern. In addition, the result for t-test and one way ANOVA test revealed that there was not much effect from the demographic differences to level of food safety concerns.

Keywords: Concerns, European Union Tourists, Food Safety Management.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1055655

References:

[1] COHEN, E. AND N. AVIELI, "FOOD IN TOURISM," ANNUAL OF TOURISM Research, Vol.31, No. 4, 2004, pp. 755-778.
[2] Savodori, L., Savio, S.,Nicotra, E.,Rumiati, R.,Finucan, M.,& Slovid, P."Expert and public perception of risk of biotechnology," RiskAnalysis, 24(5), 2004, pp.1289-1299.
[3] M. Siegrist, G. Cvetkovich, and C. Roth, "Salient value similarity, social Trust and risk/benefit perception," Risk analysis, Vol.20, No.3, 2000,pp.353-362.
[4] M.F. Chen, "Segmentation of Taiwanese consumers based on trust in the Food supply system," British Food Journal, Vol. 114, Iss:1, 2012, pp. 70-84.
[5] S.J. Page, "Current issue in tourism: the evolution of travel medicine Research: a new research agenda for tourism?," Tourism Management.Volume 30, 2009, pp.149-157.
[6] M. T. Takeuchi and K. Boonprab, "Food safety situations in Thailand With Regard to their Thai-s food safety knowledge an behaviors," Kasetsart Jornal, 2006, 40: pp.222-228.
[7] R. M.W. Yeung and J. Morris, "Food safety risk consumer perception and Purchase behavior," British Food Journal, 2001, Vol.103, pp.170- 186.
[8] J. Kennedy, M. Worosz, E.C. Todd, and M.K.lapinski, "Segmentation of US Based on food safety." British Food Journal, 2008. Vol.110, pp. 691- 705.
[9] T. Yamane, "Statistics: An introductory analysis," 3rd editon, 1973, New York, Harper and Row.
[10] S. Leikas, M. Lindeman, K. Roininen, and L. Lahteenmaki, "Food risk Perspective, gender, and individual differences in avoidance and Motivation, intuitive and analytic thinking styles, and anxity," 2007, Appetite, 48, pp.232-240.