FACTORS INFLUENCING FOREIGN TOURISTS’ DECISIONS FOR WORKATION TRAVEL IN THAILAND DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Vichian Puncreobutr
Faculty of Education, vichian@stic.ac.th
Vipa Pengsa-ium
Faculty of Nursing,
Warairat Sompong
Faculty of Business Administration,
Thapanee Panupas
Faculty of Public Health St Theresa International College, Thailand
Abstract
The objective of this research is to study workation travel decisions, the factors involved in foreign tourists’ workation travel decisions, and the factors influencing foreign tourists’ decisions for workation travel in Thailand during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a mixed research, in which the qualitative research data was collected from in-depth interviews with foreign tourists. Data collection for the quantitative research was obtained from foreign tourists who were on workation travel in Thailand. The statistics used in the research were Mean, S.D., and Multiple Regression Analysis. The results revealed that 1) Workation travel decisions materialized from the fact that Thailand provided interesting information about tourism that were modern and distinct from other tourist attractions, which satisfied tourists’ needs and wants. 2) Foreign tourists’ deciding factors for workation travel consists of tourism product uniqueness, safety from crime, natural disasters and accidents, marketing promotions via social media, measures undertaken to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and airline quality. 3) For the factors influencing the decision for workation travel in Thailand, it was discovered that positive influence factors were tourism product uniqueness (B), marketing promotions via social media (D), measures undertaken to prevent the spread of Covid-19 (E), and airline quality (F). Negative influence factors include safety from crime, natural disasters, and accidents (C). The predictive efficiency coefficient is 50.4 percent (R2 = 0.504). This can be written in the linear equation form as: Decision = .987 + .350(Product) + .243(Promotion) + .191(Covid Control) + .156(Airlines) – .154(Crimes)
Keywords: Workation travel, Factors Influencing Decisions, Traveling during the Covid-19 Pandemic