Foreign Tourists’ Perspective on Selecting Thailand,

the Land of Smile, as a Tourist Attraction

Bampen Maitreesophon1

1. Liberal Arts Program Director, Stamford International University

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to explore and to compare foreign tourists’ perspective on
selecting Thailand, the Land of Smile, as a tourist attraction. The sample consists of 415 foreign
tourists from 30 nationalities who visited Thailand between September 2011 and January 2012.
The perceptions focused on: Safety and security, ease of travel, cultural and historical diversity,
quality of accommodation, friendliness of local people, nightlife and entertainment, shopping
facilities, and overall satisfaction after visiting Thailand as the land of smile. The research is
conducted using a semi structural questionnaire designed by the researcher and it is pretested
before using with foreign tourists.

According to the study, Thailand’s brand image as the Land of Smile is well known among
foreign tourists. The government of Thailand in accordance with all tourism promoters should
maintain and strengthen the country image and also a whole-heartedly service mind style to
promote Thailand tourism. The study revealed that most respondents were male, British, aged
between 21-30, students, first-time visitors, staying four weeks or more, travelling on their own
on tourism purpose, having heard of tourist attractions from friends and relatives. They also had
a chance to visit other places within Thailand. Female foreign tourists’ perception was strong on
friendliness of local people, safety and security, nightlife and entertainment, and shopping
facilities. Surprisingly, male foreign tourists gave importance to quality of accommodation,
cultural and historical diversity, and ease of travel.

Key Words: Tourism, foreign tourist, perspective

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April 21st , 2012 Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkla University
Background:

Tourism in Thailand today is considered as one of the country’s most important industries and
consists of various types of businesses that nourish Thailand’s economy. Over past ten years
since the government has launched the ‘Amazing Thailand’ campaign, the number of
international arrivals to Thailand has grown up dramatically. However, in South East Asia it is
not only Thailand that promotes its tourism campaign, other neighboring countries such as
Malaysia and Singapore, they also boosted their movement on tourism industries as well.

For the time being tourism sectors in Thailand, whether government-run or private, endeavor
every possible strategy to grow their market share of international tourism in light of competition
from other South East Asian countries. Unexpectedly, Thailand recently has suffered from
various disorders such as Tsunami, the emergence of bird flu, political conflicts during April and
May 2010, and floods that hit Bangkok and other important areas in late 2011. These obstacles
have caused enormous damages to Thailand tourism industry today.

Thailand was once known worldwide as the ‘Land of Smile” and this image has attracted foreign
tourists for quite a long time. It positively refers to friendliness of Thais or local people and also
implies a peaceful land. Somehow, foreign visitors don’t seem to be attracted by the Land of
Smile anymore especially after the political riots in 2010 and numbers of natural disasters. The
instable politics and unanticipated disasters do affect the country image, which is reflected by the
decline of tourism industry at once. It is important to recognize that the intangible nature of the
destination that best described as a ‘product’ cannot be seen or experienced by tourists prior to
purchase. It is, by all means, necessary to persuade tourists to think and react positively to the
destination (Martinez and Pina 2003) and since tourists cannot witness the destination’s product
and services beforehand, they can only rely on image and are reassured with word of mouth
confirmed by friends and relatives. Thus, it is undoubtedly to say that a brand of trade mark
describes friendliness of local people Aaker (1991).

In addition the most fundamental decisions made by tourism consumers are: whether to travel,
where to travel and what to do, when to travel, how long to stay, and how much to spend
(Oppewal, Huybers, and Crouch, 2010). Before making decision, tourists need numbers of
details and sources to help support their conclusion. Some tourists may spend several months on
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information research to make sure their choice will meet with desire and expectation and return
home with full of longtime memorable experience. Tourist activity, as mentioned earlier, can be
divided into five phrases starting from planning to longtime after returning home. The concept of
tourist activity can be shown as follow:

Home Travelling At tourist attractions

Planning To the Destination

Experiencing

Remembering Back Home

(Adapted from Clawson & Knetsch, 1966)

From the above-mentioned framework, it is clearly shown that tourists always plan their
travelling in advance and select tourism destinations suit to their needs and objectives. Tourism
promoters in Thailand should provide adequate products and services to satisfy international
tourists. Thus, it is essential that all tourism sectors in Thailand understand and seek every
possible way to promote Thailand tourism and the image of Thailand as the Land of Smile back
to life and to make Thailand as a premium tourist destination like ever.

Objectives/ Research Questions

The aim of this research was to explore and to compare foreign tourists’ perspective on selecting
Thailand, the Land of Smile, as a tourist attraction. This study also aimed at finding answers on
questions: What is a foreign tourists’ perspective on selecting a tourist attraction? And are there
significant differences in relation to age and gender of foreign tourists on selecting tourist
attractions?

Definition of Terms:

Tourism: Activities of person traveling and staying for recreational or leisure purposes and
consuming services provided to support traveling and staying at the place where it is not their
usual residence.
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Foreign Tourist: Non-native person obtaining a tourist visa (if required) for purposes of
recreation, leisure, visits friends and relatives, holiday, and etc.

Perspective: Ability of person to perceive things or places in their actual viewpoint, the meaning
of the perception to things, places, and activities differs depending on the perceiver.

Research Methodology

To pursue the objective of this research, a semi structural interview questionnaire was designed
to interview 415 foreign tourists who visited five tourist attractions in Thailand namely Bangkok,
Hua-Hin, Cha-am, Chiang-Mai and Hatyai. Foreign tourists were personally interviewed in
English language. The tourists were requested to share their personal profile, length of stay,
arrival category, hearing of tourist attractions, purpose of visit, and chance to visit other place.
Visitors were also asked to rate their perspective on eight aspects: Safety and security, ease of
travel, cultural and historical diversity, quality of accommodation, friendliness of local people,
nightlife and entertainment, shopping facilities, and overall satisfaction after visiting Thailand.
The responses were measured on a 5-point scale from very low consideration to very high
consideration which norms for interpretation collected data are described as follow:

Table 1: Norms for interpretation

Range Overall Mean Interpretation

4.50-5.00 Very high Considered at a very high level
3.50-4.49 High Considered at a high level
2.50-3.49 Average Considered at an average level
1.50-2.49 Low Considered at a low level
1.00-1.49 Very low Considered at a very low level
Findings
Most foreign tourists were male, aged 21-30 years old, British (17.3%) and American (16.1 %).
They were students with first visit, travelled on their own on tourism purpose (57.8%) and stayed
in Thailand for four weeks and more. Decision-making on selecting tourist attractions was based
on hearing from friends and relatives (36.4%) and searching information from internet (27.7%).
63.1% had a chance to visit other places in Thailand.
Table2: The Respondents Profile (N=415)

General Information Frequency Percentage

Gender Male 305 73.49

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 Female 110 26.51
Age
20 and under 56 13.5
21-30 156 37.6
31-40 61 14.7
41-50 64 15.4
51-60 47 11.3
Over 60 31 7.5
Nationality
American 67 16.1
General Information Frequency Percentage
Australian 24 5.8
Brazilian 4 1.0
British 72 17.3
Canadian 4 1.0
Chinese 15 3.6
Danish 19 4.6
Dutch 28 6.7
Finnish 4 1.0
French 6 1.4
German 16 3.9
Irish 9 2.2
Israeli 2 0.5
Japanese 20 4.8
Korean 4 1.0
Malay 9 2.2
Mexican 3 0.7
Nepali 3 0.7
Norwegian 11 2.7
Russian 19 4.6
Singaporean 23 5.5
Spanish 3 0.7
Swedish 27 6.5
Swiss 5 1.2
Other nationalities 18 4.3
Occupation
Self-employed 86 20.7
Government Officer 16 3.9
Business 120 28.9
Student 137 33.0
Retiree 23 5.5
Other 33 8.8
Time to visit
First time 149 35.9
2-3 times 126 30.4
4-5 times 25 6.0
More than 5 times 115 27.7
Length to stay
Less than 1 week 44 10.6
1 week 56 13.5
2 weeks 131 31.6
3 weeks 32 7.7
4 weeks and more 152 36.6
Arrival Category
Independent travel 262 63.1
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 With tour group 103 24.8
Other 50 12.0
Purpose of visit
Business 68 16.4
Seminar 7 1.7
Tourism 240 57.8
Shopping 54 13.0
Other 46 11.1
Hearing of tourist attraction
Advertisement 30 7.2
Internet 115 27.7
General Information Frequency Percentage
Friends and relatives 151 36.4
Travel Agency 31 7.5
Books and Magazines 42 10.1
Other sources 46 11.1
Chance to visit other places
Yes 262 63.1
No 153 36.9
Table 3: Overall foreign tourists’ perspective on selecting tourist destinations

Male Female Overall

No Tourists’ Perspective Mean DR. Mean DR. Mean DR.
1. Safety and security 3.93 High 4.28 High 4.03 High
2. Ease of travel 3.92 High 3.91 High 3.92 High
3. Cultural and historical diversity 4.14 High 4.08 High 4.12 High
4. Quality of accommodation 4.33 High 4.05 High 4.26 High
5. Friendliness of local people 4.19 High 4.32 High 4.23 High
6. Nightlife and entertainment 3.96 High 4.06 High 3.99 High
7. Shopping facilities 3.85 High 3.99 High 3.87 High
8. Satisfaction after visiting Thailand 4.20 High 4.19 High 4.20 High
From above table, male tourists gave importance to quality of accommodation (mean= 4.33)
and cultural and historical diversity (mean=4.14). Female tourists gave a strong consideration
to friendliness of local people (mean=4.32) and safety and security (mean=4.28). Overall
foreign tourists satisfaction after visiting Thailand was rated on a high level (mean= 4.20).

Table 4: ANOVA results

Sum of quares df Mean Square F Sig.
Safety and security Between Groups 9.756 1 9.756 12.958 .000
Within Groups 310.952 413 .753
Total 320.708 414
Ease of travel Between Groups .019 1 .019 .034 .855
Within Groups 238.356 413 .577
Total 238.376 414
Cultural and historical Between Groups .253 1 .253 .394 .530
diversity Within Groups 264.480 413 .640
Total 264.733 414
Quality of accommodation Between Groups 6.185 1 6.185 10.503 .001

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 Within Groups 243.227 413 .589
Total 249.412 414
Friendliness of local people Between Groups 1.520 1 1.520 2.156 .143
Within Groups 291.189 413 .705
Total 292.708 414
Nightlife and entertainment Between Groups .804 1 .804 .736 .392
Within Groups 451.158 413 1.092
Total 451.961 414
Shopping facilities Between Groups 1.624 1 1.624 1.894 .169
Within Groups 354.053 413 .857
Total 355.677 414
A one-way ANOVA was used to determine tourists’ perspective when selecting tourist
destinations in relation to gender. Results showed that there were significant differences on
safety and security (F=12.958; sig.=.000) and quality of accommodation (F=12.503; sig.=.001),
while other aspects showed no signification of impact.
Discussions
The aim of this research was to explore and to compare foreign tourists’ perspective on selecting
Thailand, the Land of Smile, as a tourist attraction. Foreign tourists were interviewed in English
language about their personal profile and were requested to rate their perspective when selecting
a tourist attraction on a Likert Scale (1=very low – 5 = very high). They were also requested to
give suggestions or comments on promoting tourism in Thailand and share their own opinion on
the image of Thailand as the Land of Smile.

It is evident that decision on selecting tourist attractions is mostly based on word of mouth and
gathering data from internet. The research results showed that 36.4 % of foreign tourists selected
their tourist attractions by hearing from friends and relatives. This can be assumed that the brand
image is also influenced by informal promotional tool being word of mouth (Berry and
Parasuraman, 1991) and tourists own experiences (Berry and Seltman, 2007). The brand
developed is based on the position that a destination seeks to hold in the market place (Ritchie
and Crouch, 2003). Ahmed (1991) explained the term tourist image to define the tourists’ mental
picture of a destination through a representation of what they ‘see’ and ‘feel’. The first three
perceptions of foreign tourist when selecting a tourist attraction are a quality of accommodation,
friendliness of local people, and cultural and historical diversity.

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In addition, previous research had also addressed some aspects such as destination image
(Baloglu and Brinberg, 1999; Hong, Kim and Lee, 2006), the effect of advertising (Johnson and
Messmer, 1991), the internet surfing, where tourists may go online any time to conduct further
information search (Kaplanidou and Vogt, 2006) before the process of purchasing a product or
service. From the research, it is evident that 27.7 % of foreign tourists made decision on places to
visit by searching information from internet.

Female foreign tourists’ perception was strong on friendliness of local people (mean = 4.33),
safety and security (mean = 4.28), nightlife and entertainment (mean = 4.06), and shopping
facilities (mean = 3.99). Male foreign tourists gave importance to quality of accommodation
(mean = 4.33), cultural and historical diversity (mean = 4.14), and ease of travel (mean = 3.92).
The research results confirmed that behavioral intentions of tourists affected their decision
making (Lam and Hsu, 2006), and the role of hedonic experience, novelty and fantasy (King,
2002), price and cognitive distance (Nicolau and Mas, 2006) and attitude and preferences (Um
and Crompton, 1990), also helped confirming on decision making.

From research result, it is understandable to say that the brand image of Thailand, as the Land of
Smile, is very well known among foreign tourists. This idea is supported by numbers of
researchers such as Baloglu and Brinberg (1999) and Hong, Kim and Lee (2006). The
friendliness of local people according to this research means the way how foreign tourists ‘see’,
‘feel’, and ‘expect’ from the friendliness of Thai people. The government of Thailand in
accordance with all tourism promoters should apply the friendliness of Thai people as one of
important tools to promote the tourism of Thailand.

By careful examining the research result on shopping facilities (mean = 3.99), it is quite a
surprise to see visitors did not expect on shopping facilities very much during their visit
Thailand. This can be assumed that, from foreign tourists view point, Thailand may not be the
best place for shopping as compare to Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and other Asian
countries.

Recommendations:

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Thailand is one of the oldest nations in South East Asia that has a rich culture and remarkable
history. The research results showed that numbers of foreign tourists visit Thailand because of its
cultural and historical diversity. Besides rich culture and remarkable history, Thailand possesses
also different kinds of natural attractions such as beautiful coasts and high mountainous areas
that consist of various climate zones suit to each tourist’s intention. Moreover, form the research,
female tourists put a heavy consideration on the friendliness of local people and their personal
safety and security which it can be assumed that the image of Thailand as the land of smile
always attract the heart of foreign visitors. On the other hand, the political conflicts and natural
disasters can be situations that harm the country image. The friendliness of local people always
means a wholeheartedly service-mind Thai tourism industry or service with heart, which this can
reinforce image of Thai tourism that can win over tourists’ hearts as well. The results also
showed that tourists made decision on selecting place to visit by hearing and reassuring from
friends and relatives which are the ones they can trust. Some tourists also browsed from internet
for more information in order to confirm their decision. Thus, the image of destinations, whether
from word of mouth or from news and media, is one of the determinants of travel behavior. The
poor image of destination or country causes the decline of tourism industry.

The research results also revealed the careful consideration of male tourists on the quality of
accommodation. This can be addressed by offering hotels, home stays, lodges, guest houses and
other types of accommodations around tourist attraction areas that meet the minimum standard
requirements to make it convenient and comfortable to domestic and international tourists. By
comparison between male and female visitors, male visitors also prefer to select places that are
easy and convenient to reach, which means that males, when traveling with their family, are the
ones who are responsible for taking their family to a certain place. It is recommended that road
and transportation heading to historical and cultural areas, sea beach, and other tourist attractions
around should be in a good condition. In addition, transportation fares such as car renting, taxi,
bus, mass transportation and other types of transportation should be based on reasonable prices
and should be provided adequate the need of tourists

Regarding the shopping facilities, it is evident that foreign tourists did not focus very much on
shopping possibilities when visit Thailand as to other Asian countries. It is recommended to offer

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more shopping opportunities such as high quality products at a cheap price as well as a greater
variety of goods and brand names goods produced in Thailand.

In summary, the perception of foreign tourists when selecting Thailand as their tourist attractions
is based on the previous brand image of Thailand. Visitors always know Thailand from word of
mouth and expect a positive attitude when dealing with Thais. The friendliness of local people is
always possible to gain bigger market share and to promote tourism in Thailand.

References:

Ahmed, Z. U. (1991) The influence of the components of a state’s tourist image on product
positioning strategy, Tourism Management. December, 331-340.
Baloglu, S. and Brindberg, D. (1997). Affective images of tourism destinations, Journal of
Travel Research. 35 (4). 11-15.
Berry, L. L. and Parasuraman, A. (1991) Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality.
New York: Free Press.
Berry, L. L. and Seltman, K. D. (2007) Building a strong services brand: lessons from Mayo
Clinic, Business Horizons. 50, 199-209.

Clawson, Marion & Jack L. Knetsch (1966). Economics of outdoor recreation. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press.

Johnson, Robert R. and Donald J. Messmer (1991), ‘The Effect of Advertising on Hierarchical
Stages in Vacation Destination Choice,’ Journal of Advertising Research, 31(6), 18–24.
Kaplanidou, Kyriaki and Christine Vogt (2006), ‘A Structural Analysis of Destination Travel
Intentions as a Function of Web Site Features’ Journal of Travel Research, 45 (2),
204–216.
King, J. (2002), ‘Destination Marketing Organizations – Connecting the Experience Rather
Than Promoting the Place,’Journal of Vacation Marketing, 8(2), 105–108.
Lam, Terry and Cathy H. C. Hsu (2006), ‘Predicting Behavioural Intention of Choosing a
Travel Destination,’ Tourism
Management, 27(4), 589–599.

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Nicolau, Juan L. and Francisco J. Mas (2006), ‘The Influence of Distance and Prices on the
Choice of Tourist Destinations: The Moderating Role of Motivations,’ Tourism
Management, 27(5), 982–996.
Oppewal, Harmen and Belinda Holyoake (2004), ‘Bundling and Retail Agglomeration Effects
on Shopping Behavior,’ Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 11, 61– 74.
Ritchie, B. and Crouch, J. (2003) The Competitive Destination: A Sustainable Tourism
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Um, Seoho and John L. Crompton (1990), ‘The Roles of Perceived Inhibitors and Facilitators
in Pleasure Travel Destination Decisions,’ Journal of Travel Research, 30(3), 18–25.

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