The Influence of Perceived Tourism Components towards Decisions Making for Cultural Tourism in Nakhon Si Thammarat

Abstract

          The objectives of this research were; 1) to study perceived tourism components and decisions making for cultural tourism among Thai tourist and 2) to study the influence of perceived tourism components towards decisions making for cultural tourism in Nakhon Si Thammarat. The quantitative approach was employed in this study. This research was conducted on 400 Thai tourists who traveled to Nakhon Si Thammarat for cultural tourism. The samples were calculated at 95% confidence level using 5% sampling error. 400 tourists selected by convenience sampling method. The descriptive statistics were frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The inferential statistic for hypothesis testing was stepwise multiple regression analysis.

           The results revealed that tourists have high level of overall  amenities, followed by accessibility. Tourists demonstrated high level of overall decisions making towards cultural tourism in Nakhon Si Thammarat. When considering each aspect; the results revealed that tourist have highest level in travelling decision, followed by post  travelling behaviour, problem recognition, information search and evaluation of alternatives, respectively. Perceived tourism components, which composed of attraction, amenities and accessibility aspects influenced their decisions making for cultural tourism. The results suggested that these three aspects contributed to 45.6 per cent to the variation of decisions making for cultural tourism. The attraction aspect showed highest influence on decisions making for cultural tourism, followed by accessibility and amenities aspects, respectively.