Agritourist Needs and Motivations: The Chiang Mai Case

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Agritourism in Thailand has been growing in terms of number of accommodations, shops, and attractions. Unfortunately, not many of them are successful as they do not know what agritourists need and/or are looking for. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine what agritourist needs are and how those needs are correlated among themselves. The sample of this study were agritourists who have stayed at agritourism accommodations and/or visited agritourism attractions in Chiang Mai. Factor analysis was employed to assess the nomological and discriminant validity of agritourists’ needs and motivations as well as to analyse the correlations among agritourist needs. Meanwhile, ANOVA was employed to determine differences in agritourists’ needs. Three groups of agritourist needs including ‘Activities and shopping’, ‘Facilities, services, and location’, and ‘Attractions and environment’ were indentified. Moreover, the results of the factor analysis also categorise agritourist motivations into three groups namely ‘Agricultural experiences’, ‘Quality of life, relationships, and adventure’, and ‘Relaxations’. As a result of the research findings, strategic implications for agritourism providers and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) are proposed.

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