Sherstneva A.R. Geography of digital nomad hubs in Thailand

Abstract

Technological progress and the spread of mobile technologies allow people to be independent from the office and work anywhere with the Internet. There are more and more digital nomads who are people taking advantage of remote working to enable a lifestyle of constant traveling. The main centers of attraction for digital nomads are budget destinations with a comfortable climate. This paper represents the study of digital nomad hubs in Thailand: the cities of Bangkok and Chiang Mai and the resort islands of Phangan and Phuket. The methodology includes content analysis of digital nomads’ posts and spatial analysis of infrastructure for digital nomads, that allows to outline the areas of places where their daily practices take place. The cores of such areas are coworking spaces – their location and attractiveness for digital nomads depends on the urban area type. In resort centers, the location of coworking becomes a determining factor, which can be illustrated by the example of Phuket, where the expat district Rawai turns out to be attractive to digital nomads, whereas noisy tourist areas seem repulsive to them. In large cities such as Bangkok, the highest concentration of coworking spaces is observed in multifunctional urban centers such as Silom and Siam. However, coworking spaces here are more focused on employees of local companies, while digital nomads prefer areas with affordable housing with expats settled, which emphasizes the importance of an appropriate social environment along with the availability of infrastructure.