The Chinese Tourists’ Behaviours and Satisfaction with the Service Quality of Thai Tour Guides and Tour Operators in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

The tourism project titled ‘the Chinese tourists’ behavior and satisfaction with the service quality of Thai tour guides and tour operators in Bangkok, Thailand’, aims to study 1) the Chinese tourists’ satisfaction with the service quality of Thai guides and tour operators in Bangkok; and 2) the Chinese tourists’ behavior when visiting Thailand. 100 questionnaires were collated from Chinese tourists with accidental sampling method and analyzed the data collected with the descriptive statistics, i.e., frequency (N.), percentage (%), mean (x̅) and Standard Deviation (S.D.) The research results found that most of Chinese tourists were female (52%) between 21-29 years old (30%), single (62%), holding a Bachelor degree (49.0%), being the students (32%), and earning an average monthly income between 20,001-30,000 Baht equivalent (43%). In term of travelling behaviours, 50 percent of them visited Thailand for their first time, 60 percent of them was accompanied with their lovers or families, followed by 49 percent travelled for their recreation on their convenience, and spent between 10,000-30,000 Baht equivalent for the trip. Most of these Chinese tourists knew about Thailand tourism from their tour operators, and decided to visit Thailand due to there are a lot of beautiful attractions in Thailand. The majority of these tourists stayed at the hotel, and were willing to return to Thailand in the near future accounted for 67 percent. With the satisfaction levels of Chinese tourists upon the service quality of Thai tour guides and tour operators, the study revealed that they were very satisfied (x̅ = 4.39. S.D. = 0.66) due to Thai tour guides are good qualified and hold the following aspects: 1) they always present their licenses when they were on their duty; 2) they have good knowledge, skills, and expertise in their profession; 3) they are patient, work hard and determined; 4) they are willing to provide the best services to their customers; and 5) they have good relationships, and make friends with all tourists. Similarly, the satisfaction levels of Chinese tourists upon the service quality of Thai tour operators were also high (x̅ = 4.26, and S.D. = 0.71) because the Thai tour operators hold the following qualifications, namely 1) they provide life and accident insurance covering damages and lost items to the tourists; 2) tour operators provide a bus with security and high standards which are shown the reliability to their tourists; 3) they chose a good accommodation with high security and standards to their group tours; and 4) they arranged the personal supports and needs for their tourists regarding the places they visited and temperature conditions.