Motivation of Thai Tourists for Traveling to Phrae Province

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to analyze demographic characteristics of the informants, and motivation of Thai tourists traveling to Phrae province. The concepts and theories on push factors and pull factors were applied as a conceptual framework for this study. The research instruments used for collecting data was questionnaire which was evaluated by experts on content validity with IOC 0.95 and Cronbach’s coefficient alpha about 0.80. Data were collected from 400 Thai tourists with a purposive sampling method and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. And the hypothesis testing consisted of T-test, One-Way ANOVA (F-test), and Least Significant Difference (LSD) with statistically significant at a level of 0.05.            The results of the study were as follow : 1) Most of the respondents were women (57.25%), aged between 21-37 years of age, (Gen Y), (41.50%). Most of them had bachelor’s degree (57.25%) with monthly income less than 15,000 baht a month (47.25%). They worked in private businesses (23.50%). Most of them were single (60%). The study revealed that the overall push factor was at the highest level ( x̅ = 4.23). When considering each side, relaxation was rated at the highest level of motivation ( x̅ = 4.59). The overall pull factor was at the high level ( x̅ = 4.06).  When considering each side, tourist attraction was rated at the highest level of motivation ( x̅ = 4.24). For hypothesis testing, it was found that tourists with different demographic characteristics had no statistically significant difference at a level of 0.05 upon tourists’ motivation for traveling to Phrae province (t= -2.409, Sig.= 0.156). Therefore, the hypothesis was rejected. However, tourists with different ages had statistically significant difference at a level of 0.05 on tourists’ motivation traveling to Phrae province (F=9.816), (Sig.=0.000). Therefore, the hypothesis was accepted.