THE NEEDS OF THAI TOURISTS BASED ON MARKETING MIX FACTORS IN VISITING PHAYAM ISLAND, RANONG PROVINCE

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the needs of Thai tourists based on marketing mix factors for visiting Phayam Island, Ranong province. The research sample consisted of 385 Thai tourists. The research instrument was a questionnaire containing both open-ended and close-ended question items. For data analysis, descriptive statistics including the frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were applied.  Inferential statistics employed for hypothesis testing were t-test and one-way ANOVA. The findings revealed that majority of the tourists were females, aged 40 - 59 years, married, with upper secondary/vocational education level, with occupations of merchants or self-employed, with monthly income of 10,001 - 20,000 baht per month.  The tourists ranked the marketing mix factors responding to their needs from highest to lowest as follows: product, price, process, physical characteristics, and place/distribution channel being at the same level, followed by personnel and marketing promotion respectively.