FACTORS AFFECTING SRI LANKAN TOURISTS IN THAILAND: BUDDHISM, HISTORIC SIGHTSEEING, AND SHOPPING

Abstract

Thailand as a country with its cultural resources and natural beauty alone with very friendly authority has promoted tourism and therefore every year, there are many tourists coming to visit Thailand from all around the world. This study aims to understand Sri Lankan tourist’s behavior because there is no previous study about Sri Lankan tourists in Thailand. This study is plans to help religious, historic sightseeing and shopping tour operations to better take care of Sri Lankan tourists. Furthermore, the data are collected from Sri Lankan tourists in Thailand through interviews. The study discovered that these tourists are satisfied with religious activities, gorgeous historic places and organized shopping activities. The religious tourism is encouraged by the similar worshipping practices of 200 years old Siam nikhaya in Sri Lanka which was gifted by Thai king while shopping reasons have encouraged by high quality but competitively less price due to mass production. When it comes to the recommendations, the pattern found is that the tourists are quite sophisticated; they are satisfaction oriented working people with above average income level. Also it has identified that the Thai tourism industry is a highly recommended place for religious tourism, historic tourism and shopping tourism. Finally, it was also clear that the number of tourists arrival over the period of time has also increased due to their satisfaction level in previous visits has increase.