FACTORS AFFECTING PURCHASING BEHAVIOR OF ASEAN TOURISTS IN THAILAND
Keywords:
ASEAN Tourists in Thailand, Social Media Search Behavior, Tourist’s Purchasing BehaviorAbstract
Department of Tourism of Thailand indicates that tourists’ arrivals from ASEAN countries to Thailand have been increasing up to 8.6 million in 2016. This phenomenon is significant in driving several related industries e.g. airlines business and the Thai economy. To maintain this positive circumstance, we might need to address the purchasing behavior and its possible influencing factors e.g. socio-demographic profiles and the social media search behavior of ASEAN tourists who travel to Thailand. This study is a survey research using a quota sampling and questionnaires to collect data from one-hundred tourists of five ASEAN countries including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia and the Philippines who travelled to Thailand. Data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics and the hypotheses were tested by using Chi-Square (X2-test).
This study found majority of respondents are single, female and earn average monthly income of 500-1,000 USD. Results of hypothesis testing revealed that ASEAN tourists in Thailand who have different socio-demographic profiles e.g. gender, age and nationality are likely to be different in terms of their purchasing behavior e.g. length of stay and average spending amount per trip. Moreover, we found that there is a significant relationship between social media search behavior (by Facebook and YouTube platforms) and purchasing behavior of ASEAN tourists in Thailand at significant level of 0.05.
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