The Thai craft beer movement : tourism and consumption community

Abstract

This research studied the phenomenon of Thai craft beer from three perspectives. First, it examined the main features of the Thai craft beer movement. Second, it investigated the salient social capital elements that are constructed in the Thai craft beer consumption community. Third, it explored Thai craft beer tourism and experience elements that attributed to the Thai craft beer movement. This study aimed to contribute to the understanding of craft beer tourism, a subcategory of food and beverage tourism, by providing a non-Western perspective. The inclusion of several additional factors found within the Thai context, and which has never been included in the craft beer tourism literature, provided a call for a more local outlook of the phenomenon as well as a different dimension to understanding craft beer tourism across diverse aspects. This study also provided important recommendations for nascent entrepreneurs. This study was drawn from qualitative research methods in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting the research data. The data were collected from four sources: 1) in-depth interviews with the craft brewers and consumers

2) onsite observation

3) secondary data sources related to the craft beer sector

4) Netnography to gather data from online social media platforms namely Facebook and Instagram, and online user-generated content namely Google Review and TripAdvisor. Data analysis was performed in two approaches depending on the topic. To identify the social capital, a thematic coding was analyzed through the interview transcripts, observation notes, and Facebook content. To explore the experience elements in Thai craft beer tourism, a comparative case study of Thailand Beer Festival and Chit Beer, a local microbrewery, was analyzed using the data from interviews, participatory observations, online social media platforms, and online user-generated content. The findings revealed that the alcohol laws have a direct impact on the Thai craft beer sector. The laws have controlled and set requirements in different aspects namely production, distribution, and consumption. Many brewers avoided the production limitation by using contract breweries in foreign countries. For the marketing and distribution channel, pubs and bars, beer events, and local distributors are the main drivers in distributing the products. For the social capital aspect, four social capital elements were associated with building a strong community: community leader, community network, collaboration among members, and collective goals. The findings from the comparative analysis revealed that both cases practiced experience economy in their business in different measures. This study proposed an additional realm in the experience economy framework. The owners of craft beer businesses could contribute to the tourist experience by providing service, initiating interaction, and delivering information.