BU Research Blog

Dr Choe, from the Faculty of Management provided a public lecture on ‘Spiritual Tourism and Sustainable Development’ at Chiang Mai University (CMU), Thailand. 


Research staff at the Center of Tourism Research & Development, Social Research Institute at CMU kindly helped organise the event and added a very warm welcome and hospitality. They invited CMU research staff and students as well as staff/students from other universities in Chiang Mai. Their promotional efforts attracted a big crowd! 

Dr Choe passionately shared her research ideas, data collected from Chiang Mai, her observations and interpretations. Lively discussions including helpful feedback and questions from local academics and students made the session very interesting, productive and meaningful. 

Dr Choe suggested that other Southeast Asian destinations can learn from Chiang Mai’s successful push for spiritual and sustainable tourism and the management programmes. For example, Luang Prabang in Laos has similar tourism attractions such as numbers of historically significant Buddhist temples. However, they do not offer meditation retreat/’monk chat’ programmes that Chiang Mai offers to ‘spiritual travellers’ in unique and effective ways. Dr Choe also emphasised the ASEAN’s regional cooperation for future tourism development.

Dr Choe and research staff at Social Research Institute and Dept of Tourism, Faculty of Humanities at CMU have started collaborating on a number of projects.  Updates will be posted on the BU Research Blog, so stay tuned 🙂