EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS AND TOURIST BEHAVIORS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN THAILAND
Keywords:
Correlation Analysis, Pathum-Thani Province, Socio-Demographic Characteristics, Tourist BehaviorAbstract
In the past few years, the Covid-19 pandemic has affected consumption and tourism activities in Thailand’s special area of Pathum Thani. The pandemic has had a significant impact on travel volume within Thailand and there has been a marked decrease in the arrivals of domestic tourists to various tourist attractions. This paper found that domestic tourist decision making mainly responds to the individual intrinsic characteristics and tourist behavior. The paper presents the socio-demographic characteristics of tourists which indicates that tourists are mostly female, are between 26 and 35 years old, and hold a bachelor’s degree. Most tourists have different travel behaviours according to socio-demographic characteristics factors, both in terms of behaviour in tourism expenses and travel purpose. In addition, the study also found that socio-demographic characteristics of tourists including gender, marital status, education level, occupation, income, and domicile related to the tourism behaviour of Thai tourists in Pathum Thani province were statistically significant at the 0.05 and 0.01 levels. The findings from this study can be used to develop clearer recommendations for the tourism market development plan, responding to the behaviour of self-traveling domestic tourists.
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