The demand for community-based wellness tourism services from the perspective of Thai and foreign tourists
Keywords:
Wellness tourism, Community-based wellness tourism, Demand tourists, Tourism servicesAbstract
Wellness tourism is a form of tourism that links individual health with social aspects and considers individual lifestyles. The objective of this research was to explore the demand for community-based wellness tourism services from Thai and foreign tourists' points of view. The study sample was 409 cases of Thai and foreign tourists aged 20 or over. The study tool was the online questionnaires and descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage were used.
The results of the study revealed that the demand for services could be categorized into three dimensions: tourism behavior, service activities, and standards/safety in the environment. In the tourism behavior dimension, it was found that Thai tourists (97.5%) and foreign tourists (78.5%) shared a common interest in traveling primarily for physical and mental relaxation. In the service activities dimension, the preferences differed slightly. For Thai tourists, the top five areas of highest demand included music (70.6%), hot springs (62.3%), visiting community landmarks (57.4%), massage (55.4%), and arts/performing (54.9%). In contrast, foreign tourists had a preference for craft learning activities (63.9%), healthy food (61.5%), local cooking demonstrations (61.0%), alternative medicine (60.5%), and music (58.5%) and hot springs (58.5%). Lastly, the dimension of the standards and safety in the environment, Thai tourists prioritize accident safety (70.5%), epidemic prevention and control (67.5%), emergency medical services (60.9%), emergency care (55.7%), and the cleanliness of services (51.0%). Foreign tourists, on the other hand, placed the highest demand on epidemic prevention and control (76.1%), emergency medical services (74.6%), cleanliness of various services (61.5%), safety from deception/fraud (53.2%), and accident safety (52.7%). The stakeholders should develop community-based health promotion tourism in line with the needs of tourists.
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