Development of New Tourism Routes and Tourism Products for Quality Chinese Tourists Visiting Thailand

Abstract

This research aimed to 1) study potential of tourist attraction and tourism facilities for the secondary cities to accommodate qualified Chinese tourists 2) study behaviors of qualified Chinese tourists travelling to Thailand 3) propose the guidelines in developing tourism products and promote tourism marketing for Chinese visitors in the secondary cities in Thailand. In this research, the key informants were tour guides, government officer from Provincial Office of Tourism and Sports, committee in the lower central region, 1, 2, Eastern region, committee in southern region and Andaman coast, Tourism Council of Thailand, local tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs, community leaders, and people in tourism attractions, and also qualified Chinese travelers, totaling 53 informants. In addition, this research selection of key informants with purposive sampling and snowball sampling. Depended on in-depth interview, focus group, participation observation, and tourism resource check lists for collecting research data whereas the information was analyzed through content analysis. By using analytic induction and content analysis, the researcher used the triangulation data examination method.

          According to the findings, it revealed that the potential of Thailand has strength with respect to tourism as “Thai Living” acting as the driver of tourism both domestically and internationally, together with reducing social disparity and distributing a number of travelers and revenues to community thoroughly. As for the demands of highly qualified Chinese travelers towards tourism components in tourism attractions in Thailand 1) concerning attraction, it was found that Thailand has distinctive foods and fruits with unique identity that is very interesting 2) regarding the convenience of travel, it showed that highly qualified Chinese travelers prefer to manage travelling by themselves 3) concerning facilities, it appeared that highly qualified Chinese travelers prefer to have facilities accessing to the sites or tourism activities with Chinese language 4) as for accommodation, highly qualified Chinese travelers mostly choose to stay at “4-stared hotels” above 5) as for tourism activities, highly qualified Chinese travelers have interests in various tourism activities. Accordingly, the research would like to propose 8 guidelines that are consistent with theories and concepts involving with tourism marketing.