BEHAVIOR AND PERCEPTION OF FOREIGN TOWARD LOCAL RESTAURANT IN CHIANG MAI PROVINCE

Abstract

This research aims to study behaviors and perceptions among foreigners toward local in Muang district, Chiang Mai province. The researchers used random sampling method. The samples consisted of 400 foreign tourists who experienced food at the local restaurants in Chiang Mai province. A questionnaire has been used to collect data from those foreign tourists. The statistic was used to analyze the data in this research included: frequency, percentage, and hypothesis testing by Chi-Square. This research showed that; the number of the male who filled the questionnaire is greater than the foreign tourists of the female. Most of those participants were married, between 30-39 years old, held a bachelor’s degree, income below $5,000 us dollars, and traveled from European continental. Most of the research samples who filled in the questionnaire knew and used to have local food at the local restaurants in Chiang Mai province. They knew the food from the internet and had the local food there once per week. The dish they ate most frequent is “Khan Tok” was delicious. The price of the local food less than 200 baht per meal. Most of them thought that the price was reasonable and chose to have local food instead of international ones. Most of the research samples who filled in the questionnaire thought that the local food had many tastes and liked those tastes. They could remember the names of the food contained essential nutrients were well known to foreigners.