THE EXPECTATION AND SATISFACTION OF TOURISTS TOWARD THE TOURISM PRODUCTS OF SONGKHLA PROVINCE

Abstract

The objectives of this study are to compare the expectation and satisfaction toward tourists in the tourism products of Songkhla Province by collecting data from 400 tourists using tourism products and services in the province. The data were analyzed for descriptive statistics: percentiles and means. This study analyzed the data collected by comparing the tourists’ expectation and satisfaction with the Importance Performance Analysis technique and tested the research hypothesis with t-test value. The results of the research show that expectation and satisfaction of tourists in all six categories of tourism products were at the highest level, but the levels of satisfaction of overall and individual products were lower than those of the expectation. The means of expectation were in a range of 3.83-4.01 while the satisfaction means were in a range of 3.71-3.80. When comparing the satisfaction and the expectation by employing the IPA technique, the means of both were in Quadrant 2, showing that there is a balance between the tourists’ expectation and the ability of the tourism products in creating the satisfaction. There is a significant difference between the expectation and the satisfaction of the tourists toward overall and individual products at the significant level of 0.05. Foreign tourists had lower expectation for both overall and individual products than Thai tourists at the significant level of 0.05. Regarding the satisfaction, there is no difference between Thai and foreign tourists for overall and individual products.