A Model of Potential Development in Environmental Management of Day Spa Business in Active Beach Prepared as Wellness Hub of Asia

Abstract

The main purpose of this research was to present guidelines for environmental development of Day spa business establishments in the Active Beach of Thailand by collecting primary information from 7 owners/managers/staffs of 19 establishments, 60 spa users, and 10 spa and/or environmental management experts/experienced professionals with a semi-structured questionnaire and interviews together with the collection of secondary data from documents and online social networks. The quantitative data were then analyzed using the following statistical values: percentage, mean, test statistical values as Pearson correlation coefficients, One-way ANOVA. The qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis techniques. Results indicated that the level of satisfaction of spa users towards environmental management in health spa business establishments on 10 aspects were at a high level overall (mean= 3.90). The comparative statistics of the environmental management satisfaction of health spa business establishments at a significance level of 0.05 showed that education, occupation, average monthly income, and the average number of visits to health spa services per year were different/correlated with the environmental management satisfaction scores of the establishments. Therefore, this research presents guidelines for environmental development of Day spa business in Active Beach of Thailand, which consists of three guidelines for the development of environmental policies and 11 aspects of the environment management, totaling 42 guidelines were as follows: products (3 guidelines); location/cleaning (5 guidelines);  equipment/bedding (4 guidelines); manuals and brochures (3 guidelines); packaging (3 guidelines); landscaping (3 guidelines); electrical system (8 guidelines); water system (5 guidelines), waste disposal (2 guidelines); community (3 guidelines); and other aspects (3 guidelines).