TOURIST’S PERCEPTION OF BUFFET’S FOOD WASTE IN HOTELS IN BANGKOK

Abstract

Food waste is a global phenomenon according to its consequences upon sustainability, which is considered as an inevitable spike of the hospitality industry especially in hotel’s buffets. This descriptive study aims to find the awareness and contemporary thinking of tourists upon the food waste problems in Thailand including the motives and perception influencing tourists to eat at a hotel’s buffet in relation to food waste. Furthermore, description of food service providers concerns and food waste management in the properties in relation to the government’s campaigns and guidelines. This study deployed mixed methods of in-depth and semi-structured interviews, focused group discussion, personal observations and survey questionnaires, of which all data is analyzed by utilizing content analysis, color-coding and constant comparison analysis methods. The objectives of study were 1) to measure the degree of awareness and contemporary thinking amongst tourists regarding food waste from the hotel’s buffet in Bangkok, 2) to understand the main motivations and perception that influence tourists travelling in Bangkok to have buffet in relation to food waste be in clustered, 3) to explore the food service providers’ concern towards food waste problems in relation to government’s campaigns, and 4) to find out the ways to manage the food waste of the food service providers with governmental supportive guidelines upon the leftovers. The results reflected that awareness of domestic tourists is low compared to international tourists, whilst the top three motivating factors arousing tourists to visit hotel’s buffet are special occasion, value of money, taste and quality, and variety of food offered. Secondly, perception of tourists towards food products, service and dining experience were all mentioned including buffet’s promotion. For the hoteliers, the concern of general waste is more consider rather than food waste. The policy of food waste minimization has not been passed down to the operational staff and receives less support from government. The hoteliers have also faced a great challenge of value and expectation of the tourists seeking for full function of food service while payment has been made. Thus, additional practices of live cooking, food donation and giveaway, and waste sorting were suggested to be more practical.