THE STUDY OF THAI SELF- DRIVING TOURISTS’ MOTIVATION, TRAVEL PLANNING BEHAVIOR AND SPATIAL FACTOR EFFECT ON PLANNING BEHAVIOR AND EXPERIENCE FOR TOURISM LOGISTICS DEVELOPMENT: A CASE STUDY OF THE NORTHERN THAILAND ROUTES
Keywords:
Northern Thailand route, self-drive tourism, tourism logistics developmentAbstract
This study explored self-drive tourists’ motivations, travel planning behavior, and investigated relationship of the spatial factors of self-drive tourism that influenced their planning behavior and experience. The samples were Thai self-drive tourists during their travel on Thailand’s northern route. The purpose was to provide recommendations on how to develop and improve the tourism logistics of the Northern Thailand touring routes to support Thailand’s self-drive tourism market. The study employed quantitative approach using self-administrated questionnaire with a total of 222 self-drive tourists. The analysis adopted the statistics including descriptive analysis, mean and standard deviation to rank importance level of the respondents’ motivations, and degree of attractiveness of spatial factors. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was also used to identify the relationship between the observed variables, whereas Path Analysis was used for explaining the relationship between spatial factors and planning behavior and experience. The findings revealed spending time together with family and friends, privacy, car space sharing, freedom in moving at own pace were the most important motivations of self- driving tourists. The result of travel planning behavior was grouped into pre-trip and in situ trip planning for the explanation. The socio-cultural character was perceived as the most attractive character, followed by the natural one. The Path Analysis revealed that facilities and infrastructures along the route showed significant relationship with planning behavior and driving experience, whereas spending and recreational points and socio-cultural character had significant relationship with driving experience. Some
recommendations involving the tourism physical and information logistics flow development for the Northern Thailand touring routes were also contributed in this study.
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