Travel Motivations of Thai Tourists Travelling Abroad on Their Own

Abstract

This study examined travel the motivations of Thai tourists who planned and travelled abroad on their own instead of using the service of a tour operator. As this research aimed to gain rich, in-depth, and holistic understanding of the travel motivations of this group of tourists, a qualitative methodology was employed. The informants of the study included 22 Thai tourists who had experiences of planning and travelling abroad on their own at least five times within the past two years. They were selected using purposive sampling together with snowball sampling. The total number of respondents was determined based on the data saturation. The data were collected with a combination of semi-structure interviews and participant observations and were analyzed with thematic analysis. The research findings indicated that the motivations of these tourists consisted of only push motivational factors including:  (1) factors related to travelling arrangement and travelling characteristics; (2) factors related to travelling budget; and (3) tourists’ life style.