This article explains why significant Thai-Western ‘both-ways’ migration pathways have evolved, grown and sustained over the last decades. It introduces a set of research contributions on transnational social relationships and cross-border connections between people that arise from the increasingly large-scale mobilities and migrations between Thailand and ‘the West’ – countries from Europe, North America and Australia. While Thai and Western people’s social relationships are usually studied as personal stories within a cross-border marriage migration perspective, we consider it necessary to see them as more than marriage migration. Specifically, we argue that the growing ‘both-ways’ Thai-Western migration pathways can only be understood by reference to three features of globalisation processes specific to Thailand: first, cross-border connections and social networks generated by massive West-to-Thailand tourist mobilities that incentivise Western men to see living permanently with a Thai partner as ‘realistic’; second, the radical transformations of Thai rural societies under conditions of economic development that produces ‘surplus’ mobile women; and third, the restrictive state immigration and citizenship regimes in the West and Thailand that leaves few pathways open for migration, other than by ‘marriage’. In sum, Thailand’s specific experience of globalisation is the explanatory backstory to the extraordinary prevalence of Thai-Western ‘both-ways’ migrations.

Increasing competition and demanding ecotourists mean customer satisfaction is critical for any ecolodge business. Ecolodges are a unique accommodation type in the tourism market that attempt to represent ecotourism principles. This study uses Llosa’s tetraclasse model to explore underlying satisfaction attributes within an ecolodge located on the island Kadavu, Fiji. Using semi-structured interviews and focus groups, supplemented by online reviews, this study identifies key moments of positive and negative experience during guests’ stay in the ecolodge. The results of this study provide ecolodges and other small-scale accommodation businesses with specific attributes that heighten satisfaction and identify those attributes that lead to dissatisfaction.

Increasingly, travellers are using online review platforms to post reviews about hotels. The responses to negative reviews need to be managed in a way to recover service failures. The main aim of this study was to examine the strategies used by hotel managers in responding to negative reviews on TripAdvisor. An integrated framework for analysing response strategies is developed. Content analysis of TripAdvisor reviews and interviews with hotel managers show a range of response strategies are used. We uncover two additional dimensions: values and culture. Hotels are aware of the advantages that can be gained from using appropriate responses.