Abstract:
This research aimed to study behavior and expectation towards sea
tourism in the eastern region and also compared behavior and expectation of 400
tourists from four provinces i.e. Chon Buri, Rayong, Chanthaburi, and Trat.
Questionnaire was used as the research instrument to collect the data. The
descriptive statistics of frequency, percentages, means, and standard deviation were
used for the general data analysis while the inferential statistics of Chi Square Test
and F-Test were used for the hypothesis test, respectively.
According to the research findings, most of the respondents were female,
aged 21-30 years old with single marital status. These respondents obtained the
upper secondary education or equivalent and currently worked as the company
employees with the monthly income of 10,001 20,000 Baht. They travelled for the
main purposes of relaxation and resting. Most of the tourists traveled with their
families on Saturday and Sunday. They received the tourist information from their
friends or relatives and most interested place was the beaches. They also stated that
they would come back again.
In regard with the research findings on the behavior of the tourists, the tourist
in four provinces overall indicated the difference in many aspects e.g. the traveling
purposes, fellow travelers, receiving of tourism-related information, traveling periods,
and interested tourist attractions. However, there was no difference on the re-visiting
of such tourist attractions. In terms of the expectation, the tourists in four provinces
generally had the different expectations on the aspect of products and services,
prices, distribution channels, marketing promotion, personnel, physical matters, and
processes. When separately analyzed by each province, it was found that the tourists
in Chon Buri province expected most the convenience on traveling to other places
and expected least on the cleanness of their accommodations. For the tourists in
Rayong province, they expected most the accommodations that were located near
food supply and expected least the food discount. The tourists in Chanthaburi
province expected most the naturalness and expected least the public relations
through the activities. Finally, the tourists in Trat province expected most the
accommodations that were located near food supply and expected least the
cleanness of their accommodations.