The determinants of Norwegian senior tourists intention to visit Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the determinants of Norwegian senior tourists’ intention to visit Thailand and to determine the specific characteristics of this travel market considering the pre visitation stage. In this study travel Intention was proposed to be affected by travel motivation, expectation, travel constraints, destination image, electronics word of mouth (e-WOM) were studied as exogenous variables in the model, while Attitude toward travelling to Thailand was investigated as a mediator. A sample of 500 valid and qualified respondents was analysed. Structural Equation Model (SEM) was conducted to examine the proposed model by employing Lisrel 8.72. The effect analysis was conducted to investigate influence of research constructs. The predictors of travel intention explain around 62% of its variance. The effect size of Attitude toward travelling to Thailand presented highest significant effect to Travel Intention, while e-WOM presented highest significant positive effect to Attitude toward travelling to Thailand followed by travel constraints with the significant negative effect. This study can bridge the gap of lacking knowledge about the Norwegian senior tourists in Thailand to have a better understanding of their travel characteristics and related constructs that affect to their travel intention to Thailand for further to provide useful implications for the marketing strategic planner and tourism industry practitioners to effectively design specific marketing strategies and appropriate tourism products to the potential needs of this market.