Satisfaction in Qualities of Tourism Destination Management : A Case of American Tourists in Thailand

A plethora of inbound tourists visit Thailand every year. However, the American tourist segment is an astonishing small fraction of Thai tourism market share. Why? Are Americans not satisfied with their experience in Thailand? This paper studies the level of satisfaction of American tourists concerning their experience with the quality of tourism management received in Thailand in order to understand the post purchase dissonance. The objectives of this paper were (a) to evaluate the level of satisfaction of American tourists in Thailand about their experience of the qualities in three categories: products & services, tourist destination, and tourist information and (b) to study their willingness to revisit Thailand in the future (c) to investigate if there are differences in overall tourists’ satisfaction in terms of age and level of education. The respondents were 400 outbound American tourists on their way back home through Suvannabhumi airport, Thailand. Findings revealed that American tourists ranked the quality of food & beverage as their highest satisfied in the category of product & service. The quality of shopping malls in Thailand had the highest satisfaction rank in the category of tourist destination. The quality of tourist information from business organizations had the highest satisfaction rank in the category of tourist information. In addition, the findings revealed that the overwhelming 96 percent of American tourists who had already visited Thailand wanted to revisit Thailand and as high as 97 percent of them would recommend their friends and family to visit Thailand. Finally, analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that age and education level did not lead to significance in overall American tourists’ satisfaction.