Publications

Journal article | Peer reviewed

‘Hopefully this will be a wake-up call on how we treat migrant workers’: National wokeness in press reports during the Covid-19 pandemic ↗

by Wesley Wang, Aaron Tham and Michelle M Lazar

2025
Discourse & Society

This study examines how Singapore's flagship newspaper, The Straits Times (ST), framed relationships between migrant workers (MWs) and non-state actors (NGOs, companies and individuals) during the Covid-19 pandemic. We propose the conceptual lens of national wokeness as a mediatisation strategy of positive self-presentation to overcome international criticisms concerning the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus amidst neglected MW dormitories, and to repair the nation's reputational damage. The study identifies five key discursive themes: Provision, Participation, Awareness, Inclusiveness and Humanisation; the analysis of which shows different shades of wokeness in narrativising Singaporeans' emergent social consciousness and benevolent efforts to address unmet health and social needs arising from the marginalised status of MWs in Singapore. This study shows how the pandemic offered a rare moment for a nation to pause and potentially reset its apathetic, racist and classist attitudes towards its MWs, and raises for reflection Singaporeans' longer-term commitment to social change concerning MWs' welfare after the pandemic passes.

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Journal article | Peer reviewed

Mixing business with leisure? A Framework of Bleisure participation featuring constraints, facilitators, and shopping motivation ↗

by Bongkosh Rittichainuwat, Goutam Chakraborty and Aaron Tham

2025
Event Management

The bleisure market is generally widely accepted within the business events landscape, though research to date has mostly characterized traveler experiences and the supply chain in facilitating desired needs and outcomes. Very little is known as to the constraints, facilitators, and motivations of bleisure tourists, which this study attempts to address. Drawing on a survey with 290 international attendees of a convention in Munich, Germany, the findings reveal that specific leisure activities such as shopping are more influential on bleisure intention than constraints such as perceived risks (e.g., health). A theoretical framework is conceptualized and proposed to inform future work in this sphere of bleisure, as well as practical applications of bleisure itineraries and experiences among destinations seeking to capture this high-yield market share.

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Abstract | Peer reviewed

Transformative services as sites of consumer harm ↗

by Michelle Smytheman, Maria Raciti and Aaron Tham

2025

Transformative services have the power to shape lives, often with the goal of enhancing wellbeing. However, their potential to unintentionally generate illbeing remains underexplored. This study investigates life regrets as a negative unintended consequence of transformative service engagement. Life regrets are enduring harms such as psychological, social, or material harms that emerge during or after such experiences. Drawing on 30 semi-structured, convergent interviews, participants reflected on a transformative service that resulted in regret. Thematic analysis revealed a spectrum of illbeing, with contributing factors including organisational practices such as time pressure, siloed decision-making, partial information disclosure, and gaslighting consumers by overpromising outcomes. These findings challenge the prevailing assumption that transformative services are inherently beneficial. Given that consumers typically engage these services during periods of vulnerability and life transition, greater attention is needed to their potential to inflict harm. This research calls for a more balanced understanding of transformative services, being one that accounts for both positive and negative outcomes. Doing so will better equip providers to anticipate and address risks, ensuring that services intended to support do not inadvertently harm. Recognising and mitigating life regret can enhance the ethical and practical integrity of transformative service design.

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Journal article | Peer reviewed

Going nuts? Attitudes of Japanese and Chinese consumers towards Vanuatu Canarium nuts ↗

by Tat-Huei Cham, Aaron Tham and Maria Raciti

2025
Cogent Food & Agriculture

This research addresses knowledge gaps surrounding South Pacific Canarium nut consumption attitudes in two Asian markets - Japan and China. Findings suggest that the Chinese market has a greater propensity to consume Vanuatu Canarium nuts than the Japanese. Age was another indicative factor for Vanuatu Canarium nut consumption, with those above 55 reflecting a stronger disposition than younger age groups in both the Chinese and Japanese markets. However, gender did not appear to be a discriminating factor for Vanuatu Canarium nut consumption. These insights provide theoretical and managerial implications for the future of Canarium nut marketing and consumer behaviour.

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Editorial

A Bibliometric Analysis of 25 Years in the International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration: Retrospection and Prospection ↗

by Alan Yen, JaeMin Cha, Aaron Tham and Yi Xuan Ong

2025
International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration

Reaching 25 years or more is a significant achievement and milestone for the International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration. This editorial note follows a bibliometric analysis of 584 papers published since the first issue in 2000. The evolution of the journal, along with its trends and topics of published manuscripts, provides a valuable perspective for identifying future research areas and encourages scholars from underrepresented fields to further conceptualize and critically appraise the notion of “administration,” which is central to the journal’s core scope.

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Explore all Aaron Tham's publications in UniSC Research Bank

Grants

1 June 2023 - 30 November 2023

Understanding Sunshine Coast sentiment for Brisbane 2032

Sunshine Coast Council (Australia)
Grant no. 0980028378.

David Fleischman, Rory Mulcahy, Lenny Vance, Aaron Tham and Peter English

Supervision

Masters Thesis Supervision - Completed

Effect of Nature-based Tourism on Community Well-being: A Case Study of Two Chepang Villages in Nepal ↗

Students: Binaya Duwadi

Associated Researchers: Shahab Pourfakhimi and Aaron Tham

2023 - 2026

This research aims to examine how nature-based tourism (NBT) influences community well-being (CWB) in the villages of Upardangadhi and Kape in Nepal, representing both operational and aspirational stages of tourism development. While NBT is promoted as a sustainable development strategy, many studies focus on tangible indicators, such as economic or environmental measures, overlooking the emotional dimensions of well-being and how tourism is anticipated and experienced by local communities during its early stages of adoption and engagement. This study addresses some of these knowledge gaps by analysing how residents in two Chepang Villages in Nepal perceive, experience, and adapt to tourism, and how governance, participation, and cultural values shape outcomes before destinations reach maturity. A qualitative comparative case study was conducted, drawing on 27 semi-structured interviews, field observation, and secondary documents. Purposive and snowball sampling ensured diversity across gender, age, ethnicity, and occupation. Data were transcribed, translated, and thematically analysed in NVivo, with triangulation across sources to enhance validity. Findings suggest that in Upardangadhi, NBT has diversified livelihoods, revived heritage, and improved facilities; yet, benefits remain uneven, and tensions persist due to competition, land disputes, and occasional visitor misbehaviours. In Kape, hosting is informal, and under-construction projects are largely driven by external investors, bringing infrastructure gains and hopes of demographic revival but with only tokenistic local participation. Across both sites, cultural values, local governance, and inclusiveness appear to be more influential in shaping CWB than infrastructure or market readiness. The study advances theory by integrating “aspirational tourism” into CWB frameworks, recognising emotional well-being and informal economies in NBT contexts. Practically, it shows that early-stage tourism sites benefit from capacity-building, cultural readiness, and governance preparation, while operational sites require stronger collaboration, equitable benefit-sharing, and cultural safeguards. Ultimately, sustainable tourism futures in fragile settings depend not only on infrastructure or market growth, but on governance and community leadership grounded in local values.

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Doctoral Thesis Supervision - Completed

Development of a scale to measure destination social responsibility and the co-orientation analysis in the perception of destination social responsibility ↗

Students: Yuan Lee

Associated Researchers: Aaron Tham and Bishnu Sharma

2019 - 2022

With worldwide efforts for achieving destination management in a responsible manner, the need for measuring destination social responsibility has emerged within tourism sectors. This study has two research aims: (i) to develop a scale that embodies the components and measurement items of destination social responsibility in a multidimensional perspective and (ii) to analyse the differences in perceptions of destination social responsibility between local government officials and residents by using the co-orientation model. Destination social responsibility refers to the collective efforts and ideology of the stakeholders of tourist destination that are used to carry out social responsibility (Su et al., 2018). The co-orientation model is a framework that uses indicators of agreement, congruency, accuracy, and meta-agreement to analyze the view of two communication parties about a common issue or cognitive object and describe the state of the communication. Data was collected using a survey of local residents and public officials in Busan (n=388), South Korea in 2018. It was found that the components of destination social responsibility consist of the following four constructs: responsibility for governance, responsibility for economy, responsibility for environment and responsibility for cooperation. The co-orientation analysis revealed that there were statistically significant differences held in the perceptions of destination social responsibility by local residents and public officials and both groups inaccurately estimated the other group’s view of destination social responsibility. It seems public officials over-estimate local residents’ evaluation on destination social responsibility while residents underestimate the local government’s perception of destination social responsibility. The multi-dimensional destination social responsibility scale developed in the present study may serve as a reference and be applied in future quantitative research and verifications of causality. An examination of the different view of destination social responsibility issues among groups provides useful insights into the sources of problems in a communication. Other academic and practical implications of this study were discussed in terms of tourism policy, tourism communication, and tourism culture.

Education

2010 - 2014

Doctor of Philosophy

Management

Monash University (Australia, Melbourne)