Studying the Motivations of Choosing Foreign Tourism Destinations : Case Study of Thailand

Nowadays tourists choose their destinations according to their taste, conditions and provided facilities. Aimed at psychologically understanding the reasons of travelling and the attraction of trip destinations, the scientists have presented different patterns for the travelling and the choice of trip destination. This study has been done in order to realize the motivations of choosing Thailand as a trip destination by tourists departed from Isfahan. The study is methodologically descriptive-analytic and is done in 2014. In total, 384 people were chosen through Cochran formula among the whole population –including all the tourists departed from Esfahan to Thailandin order to achieve the goals of the research. The results of the research show that the existence of cheap attractive centers and proper currency of Iran and Thailand and also on the other hand beach attractions in Thailand affect the choice of this country as a tourist destination but the men’s and women’s motivation of choosing this country as a tourist destination differs significantly.


Introduction
The first and main concept of travelling is discovering and revealing.Discovering in order to reveal a hidden goal is called travelling.If the subject, object or the person is hidden and cannot be seen by others, discovering and revealing of that object is done through travelling.Travelling means the light after the sunset and before the sunrise.Travelling causes the mind to be sound and helps the body to be healthy and also reveals the personality of the travellers (Lanquar, 2012:68).In fact travelling plays a crucial role in economic development and social welfare of the countries and expanding tourist industry is considered as one of the cheapest ways of making new jobs.The tourists direct the money from financial and industrial centers towards cities, villages and natural areas and play an important role in making new jobs (Jahanian and Nadalipour, 2009: 148).The world travel organization has estimated 6.1 billion tourists in 2020; this means $ 2 billion per year and $5 million per day of money circulation which is the travelling expenses of travellers around the world.Meanwhile, programming travelling development requires paying attention to the needs, features and the current demands as the factors of travelling demands.So, considering the tourists' ideas and their motivations for choosing a destination, marketing and programming the tourist's development and providing a basis in order to design the related infrastructures are of great importance (Kazemi, 2008:95).Therefore, if the motivations and purposes of the tourists is properly realized according to their ethnographical and psychological features, we can determine the proper destinations of tourist industry in a way that both the values of the host country and the needs of the tourists be provided (Kazemi, 2007:190).Studying the opportunities and problems of staying long in Thailand, Phiromyoo Muthita (2011) has analyzed the features of travelling with staying long in Thailand and believes that Scandinavian tourists are among the potential customers of staying long in this country.Viroj Naranong & Anchana Naranong (2011) have studied the positive and negative effects of medical tourism in this country.The positive effects can be 4% of value added tax and other small advantages.Hamilton Jacqueline (2013), in a paper titled "Weather and Destination Choice by the German Tourists", studied the role of natural environment and weather in the attraction of tourist destination and the change of demand pattern by using the travelling expenses and finally concluded that during summer, the European countries are more attractive.Anyway, the northern European countries are more attractive than famous southern European countries.Sukkasem Laphapham (2013) studied the economic effect of Thailand on development of local stability of tourism (case study: Amphawa Bazar in Samutsongkhram province) and emphasized on the direct effect of touristic attraction of the area and local people specially on economy and on the development and improvement of infrastructures which are very important in life quality.In order to reach the highest advantage of tourism and also to reduce the negative effects on the natural environment as the main concept of sustainability, it is said that the local people are allowed to row the boats.In a paper titled "Thailand and Global perspective: multinational marriage, healthy tourism and retired immigration", Sunanta Sirijit has studied and analyzed the situation of Thailand in the world economy and designed it to be a destination for body and also spiritual evolvement.Writing a paper called "the Structural Trend and Changes in Health Tourism through using the evidences of seasonal data of related expenses to health trip of Canada from 1970 to 2010, Chung-Ping A. Loh (2015) found out that the activities of health tourism in Canada has unexpectedly increased because the medical equipment has increased.Whittaker and Chee wrote a paper under the title of "the Study of the Cultural Tensions of the Tourists who Travel to Thailand to Cure a Disease".They studied the patients in multinational hospitals of this country and concluded that the multinational hospitals act like neutral environment and showed that the tension of the patients depends on their expectations and relations and also there is no complicated cultural relation between the clerks and patients but there would be a relation between the patients of different nations.Taj Zade Namin and Qazarian (2012) studied the process of effective factors in shaping up the idea of trip destination through presenting a comprehensive concept of the idea, the process and the effective factors in shaping up the idea of the tourist before and after visiting the destination.The results show that shaping the idea is affected by the comprehension and personality of the tourist and also the features of the destination.Rahim pour (2012) wrote a paper under the title of "the Comparative Study of Logos and Mottos of Destinations and the Reasons of Popularity of these Destinations in International Businesses".Using questionnaires and AHP technique, Lotfi (2013), studied grading of effective factors on the choice of foreign and domestic destinations by Isfahanian Tourists and finally concluded that the economic, cultural, social, geographical and natural factors are respectively important from the point of view of the tourists and the most important index among the economic factors is the salary.In paper titled "the Importance of Development of Brand Identity in the Management of Demands of Tourism Destination: Introduction of Recognition Pattern and Categorizing the Brands of Tourism destination", Gholi pour comprehensively analyzed the product, demand and determined the current situation of tourism destinations on the diagram of the life of tourism area and then proposed a pattern.In the mentioned pattern, the thorough analysis of the product is done to determine the features and benefits of the core, body and crust of tourism.Therefore, in the introduced pattern, the analysis of the body of the product and the analysis of the demand to identify the current situation of destination on the diagram of life longevity are emphasized.The present paper studies the prosperity of tourism in Thailand with regard to the studies done by the Thai government cooperated with the private section during four decades and also they studied the effect of mineral springs, sun, sand and beach and also hospitality and humbleness of the people compared to other countries.

The hypotheses of this research are as follow:
1.There is a significant correlation between business tourism and the choice of Thailand as a destination.
2. There is a significant correlation between the variety of beach tourism and the choice of Thailand as a destination.
3. The motivations of female and male tourists and the choice of Thailand as a tourism destination differ greatly.

Tourism Destination
Destination is a geographical region which benefits from all the required services and infrastructures for the accommodation of the tourists with special tastes.Tourism destination is a competitive unit to attract more tourists, so it is regarded as one of the main parts of tourism product (Foemica and Kothari, 2008: 357).One needs some motivations to go to a tourism destination.In fact, travelling motivation is an internal factor in forming the satisfaction of the tourist.Motivation is a mirror to reflect the people's purposes for the choice of a place and also the behavior of travelling which is affected by people's expectations (Pizam and Mansfeld, 2002:15).Besides having motivation for travelling, a tourist needs to select one of the tourism destinations.In fact, choice is the picking up or deciding to choose among two or more opportunities (Chisholm, 1911:271).
There are different theories on choosing tourism destination.Three of them are explained below:

Gunn Model
Gunn bases the tourism system on two parts of supply and demand; in the demand section, the interested and wealthy people who can go travelling (both inside the country and abroad) are classified and the supply section includes the main elements and parts like the tourists attraction, transportation, services, information and advertisements.All these elements interact with each other and form the tourism system of a destination.He puts a special emphasize on the elements of supply in the tourism system of a place and believes that the success of a tourism destination depends on the coordination, cooperation, interaction, efficiency and the success of different and complicated elements of supply section like the attractions, accommodation, transportation, information and advertisement.It sometimes seems that some of the elements or tourism sections ignore the efficiency and effectiveness of other sections.In other words, each element or part of the internal structure of the system (supply factors) like: the owners of the development of accommodations (hotels, motels, apartments, hostels, houses, villas, camps, home stays, caterings, etc.), the travel agencies, tourists' offices and so on are closer to tourism industry; but the effect of external factors (environmental factors of the system including opportunities and threatens) and other elements and sections greatly influence the dynamicity of the function of tourism system; in fact tourism doesn't include separate parts of hotels and air lines and other parts, but it is the totality of different and main parts which closely interact with each other.Each of this part is responsible for the progress of the tourism industry (supply and demand); there are details and elements in these total branches for their success the programmers and managers should try (Gunn, 2002:33).

Butler Model
Regarding the researches done on tourism development, Butler presented his model under the title of "destination life cycle" (Alvares et al, 2002-5:3).
The stages of tourism development consist of (Moore et al. 2005:113): 1.The first stage in the process of tourism development is the exploration stage.Butler believes that there is limited number of tourists for a certain city and the economic effect of tourism is also limited.The number of tourists is not that much to cause the provision of special facilities because the income is little.The relation between the tourism and local economy is very little and the local people try to control their region.Local people have a very close relation with the tourists and behave like very important people with them.This stage is called exploration stage.There is no formal tourism activity and tourism is marginalized.The tourists try to adapt themselves with the local situation.
2. The second stage is called involvement stage.It is the increase of tourism activities.The number of tourists is increased in this stage.The tourists usually stay shorter time in these areas but the number of them increases.Businesses start to establish professional services and facilities for the tourists.The hostels and small hotels start to establish restaurants and try to provide situations for tourism activities.Some of the people provide one or two rooms in their house for the tourists.The number of the tourists is enough to make money.The stage of ascending effects is created, i.e. the provision of tourism facilities will have next facilities.Serving the tourists is formally done and the society will gradually adapt itself with tourism activities and the tourists.
3. The development stage includes fast growth of tourists and dramatic changes in all the aspects of tourism in a quite short time.This stag like the stages of the model happens transitionally and then speeds up.The real rate of growth and the features of growth depend upon the attraction factors and the attempts which are done to control the tourism management.Tourism destination will enter a formal integrated system of tourism which includes the local and international systems of companies and institutes in which the tourism activities take place in an organized structure.Small hotels will expand to be big hotels.The outlook of tourism is formed in this stage and the destination will be international.
4. The fourth stage is called consolidation stage.The rate of tourism growth and other related activities decreases while the real number of tourists is increasing.According to Butler, the total number of tourists per year is more than the number of the residents of the destination.What is important in this stage is that the tourism development level is more than the environmental, economic and social capacities, so it will lead to deterioration of tourism product.In this stage, the leaders of tourism and the managers of chain hotels will arrange touristic trips and the destination would be a part of an integrated system and the tourist will dominate the economy of the area.The tourist attractions would be more professional and no more unique.Being seasonal, tourism activities would act like an obstacle for the economy of the area. 5. Next stage would be the stagnation stage or saturation stage.The number of the tourists would be more than the capacity and it will result in the deterioration of tourism.The destination may have many facilities for tourism but it may not increase the number of the tourists.The tourists are the same people who came to the destination last times.
6.The stagnation stage may stay for a while and then there may be two statuses of increase or decrease in the number of the tourists.The number of the tourists decreases when the repetitive tourists of the area are satisfied with the supplied products.Some the visitors have died or are not able to travel.Those who are in charge of tourism activities don't usually try hard or they try but they don't succeed.Local people usually don't behave well toward tourism and those who recently started tourism activities, specially intervening opportunities, try to divert or capture the traditional market of tourisms.As the number of the tourists decreases, less hotels and facilities are used.By intervening opportunities, the author means providing tourism opportunities in some other places to attract the attention of tourism market.
7. The seventh stage is the renovation stage in which the structure of the tourism destination is renovated.According to Butler model, the renovation stage happens after stagnation stage.According to him, renovation takes place when new tourism products are supplied or a new different imagination of the destination is provided for the people.Butler proposes three possible statuses after the stagnation stage.The stages are as follow: 1. Reduction 2. Continuation of stagnation stage 3. Renovation While it seems that the renovation stage happens after the reduction stage, it is proposed that what is supplied as the new products of tourism are new and unique.What is implied by achieved experiences is that the renovation stage doesn't take place on their own but it is tested in one stage and then is created by applying proper strategies (Butler, 2001: 289-292).(1975) presented an index of stages of satisfaction or satisfaction of the residents of tourists' destinations in order to explain how the points of view of the local people the stages of tourism growths has changed toward (the life cycles of tourism destination).These stages are as follow: satisfaction stage, incuriosity stage, irritation and resentment stage, animosity stage and resignation stage (Ardakani, 2003:58).This model which is related to the concepts of sustainable development has been based on the findings of Doxy, Barbados and Marioka.According to his findings, there is an interaction among the tourists and the residents of the tourists' destination which can be measured by the index of dissatisfaction (Berry, 2001:34).He believes that as the tourism develops in the tourisms' destinations, the point of the local people toward the concept of tourism relationship changes and it becomes worse (Swarbrooke, 1998: 258).

Doxy
The variable which has been presented among the tourists and the residents by Doxy, has been used by Butler (1980) as one of the criterion of determination of life cycle of the tourists' destination.According to Doxy's model, in the first stages of destination development, the tourists are welcomed by the residents.Because they are among the discoverer tourists and they bring income for the residents and they respect the residents' traditions and lifestyle.As the number of the tourists increase, the relationship between the tourists and the local people would be more formal and the tourists need some more facilities and the local people's behavior will change to incuriosity.As the development of the tourisms' destinations continues, the number of the tourist increases, the prices raise and the traditional life style of the people is threatened, then local people start to oppose to the development.In this stage, people feel that their society is changing and the costs of tourism development precede their benefits.Therefore, resentment toward tourism development begins.The growth of tourism in the destinations may lead to the indication of opposition and animosity toward the tourists, facilities and the tourism plants, because the local people consider the tourists as the main factor of their social and economic problems.Finally people find out that they can do nothing except submission of the tourism development (Zargham Boroujeni and Delshad, 2013:144).

Methodology
The present paper is an applied research, because it is done in order to apply a professional scientific field.It also studies the prerequisites of the application of the subject of the research (Bazargan et al،2002:81).Since the population of the research is Esfahanian tourists who demand to go to Thailand, the Cochran formula (unlimited population) is used in order to estimate the samples to 384 cases.Sampling is done randomly in the time period of Farvardin and Ordibehesht of 1393.So, 384 questionnaires were arranged and then distributed among the Esfahanian tourists who wanted to depart to Thailand.The questionnaires were realized and designed in two sections of general questions and Likert range questions, each contained six and ten questions respectively.The ideas and tips of the experts were used in order to measure the face and structural validity of the questionnaire.In order to achieve the reliability of the questionnaire, Identification and examination of the effective factors on choosing internal and external tourist destinations by Esfahanian tourists, Cronbach Alfa was used as the pre-test; so, 30 people were randomly selected before the final performance, then the questionnaire was given to them to be filled in.Cronbach Alfa was achieved 0.776 by SPSS which is acceptable.

Findings
The findings of the research are presented in two parts of descriptive and analytical findings.

Descriptive Findings
It was tried that the number of the men and women who fill the questionnaire be equal.It means 50% of the participants are male and the other 50% are female.Studying the marital status of the participants showed that 59.37% of them are married and the other 40.63% are single.Studying this variable indicates that 34.90% of women are single and 65.10% of them were married.46.35% of the men were single and 53.65% of them were married (Table 1).The educational level of the participants indicates that 32.55% of the whole participants didn't have diploma which 2.09% of women and 0.52% of men were illiterate, 6.77% of women and 10.94% of men were able to read and write.27.08% of women and 38.03% of men had diploma, 19.27% of women and 8.85% of men had associate degree, 39.06% of women and 41.14% of men hold bachelor degree and 5.73% and 0.52% of men were master degree or higher holders.(Table 3).Job status of the participants shows that 44.27% of them are self-employed and 8% of them are students.Table 4 summarizes job status of the participants.(Table 4).The results of studying the participants responses about how many companions they had with themselves while travelling to Thailand, indicates that 8.85% of the female tourists and 11.98% of the male tourists didn't have any companions, 30.73% of female and male tourists had 1 or 2 companions, 37.03 of female tourists and 44.27% of male tourists had 3 or 4 companions, 13.54% of female tourists and 10.42% of male tourists had 5 or 6 companions and 8.85% of female tourists and 2.60% of male tourists had more than 6 companions with themselves (Table 5).

Analytical Findings and Deductive Statistics
Regarding the fact that one of the purposes of scientific studies of the country is finding a relationship between the variables, the first hypothesis of this paper assumes that there is a relationship between business tourism and choosing Thailand as a tourism destination.Two hypotheses of cheap shopping malls and the ability to buy Thai currency for Iranian tourists were used in order to test the first hypothesis.The test has been done as follow: First Hypothesis Testing: -there is significant correlation between cheap shopping malls and the choice of Thailand as a tourist destination.
Cheap shopping malls are regarded as independent variable and the selection of Thailand as a tourist destination is considered dependent variable in this hypothesis.Regarding the fact that the questions are sequential, X 2 test has been used and the results show that 301 people (78%) of the whole participants take the existence of cheap shopping malls into account as one of the main reason of choosing Thailand as a tourist destination (table 6).The achieved value of X 2 for this hypothesis is 294.62 for which the significance correlation is 0.000 that is less than 0.05.Therefore, the zero hypothesis is rejected and opposite hypothesis is approved.
Second Hypothesis Testing: there is a significant correlation between appropriate rate of Thai and Iranian currency.
This hypothesis is proposed in order to confirm previous hypothesis and 67% (258) of the whole participants believed that appropriate rate of Thai and Iranian currency plays a significant role in choosing Thailand as a tourist destination.The calculated X 2 for this hypothesis is 175.89 whose significance correlation is 0.000 and less than 0.05 (Table 6).So the zero hypothesis is rejected and the opposite hypothesis is approved.Therefore the results show that there is a significant correlation between Thai (Bat) and Iranian (Rial) currency.Considering the approval of two subsidiary hypotheses of cheap shopping mall and appropriate rate of Thai and Iranian currency, the main hypothesis of business tourism and the choice of Thailand as a tourism destination is also approved.The statistics show that more than 50% of Iranian tourists enter Thailand in order to buy cheap clothes.
Second Hypothesis Testing: there is a significant correlation between various beach touristic places and the choice of Thailand as a tourism destination.The variety of touristic attraction is the independent variable and the choice of Thailand as a tourism destination is the dependent variable.In order to test the hypothesis, some other hypothesis like beautiful islands and various beaches in Thailand have been used.(Table 7).As it can be observed in Table 7, since the calculated significance correlation is 0.000 and less than 0.05, so the zero hypothesis is rejected and the opposite hypothesis is approved.According the findings, 330 people (86%) of the whole participants emphasize on the existence of beautiful islands and 340 people thinks that existence of beach recreation affects their choice of Thailand as a tourism destination.So it can be said that beautiful islands and beach recreation is so effective in absorbing Iranian tourists.So the hypothesis is firmly approved.
Since different sexes and age groups depart to Thailand, another hypothesis was proposed to see if there is a significant correlation between the motivation of men and women in choosing Thailand as a tourism destination.So, ten different questions about the motivation of people to choose their tourism destination were evaluated by U Mann-Whitneytest.
 Zero hypothesis: there isn't any significant correlation between men and women in choosing Thailand as their tourism destination.
 Opposite hypothesis: there is a significant correlation between men and women in choosing Thailand as their tourism destination.Considering the comparative tables and also the significance correlation of 0.001 which is lower than 0.05, so, zero hypothesis is rejected and the opposite hypothesis is approved.It can be mentioned that there is a significant correlation between men and women motivations for travelling to Thailand.The results show that more than 70% of women travel to Thailand to recreate and most of men travel there to do some business.

Conclusions and Suggestions
As the findings of the research shows, in spite of various sex and age group travelling to Thailand and existence of agencies to ease travelling to Thailand, business tourism is also effective in choosing Thailand as a tourism destination.Parachutists, business people and the tourists who travel to Thailand to purchase lots of materials form some parts of tourists traveling to Thailand.Although the quality of clothes is so low, this country is one of the main producers of clothes.Jewelry is of special design and the patterns on the jewelry inspire from Buddhist statues and there are specific customers for them.Silverware is unique and compatible with all people's different taste.Other decorative products can be silver watches and colorful stones.
On the other hand, beach and water recreations greatly affect people's point of view while choosing Thailand as a tourism destination.Existence of different beach recreation and equipping these peaceful and natural islands with these recreational facilities cause people from different parts of the world to travel to Thailand and benefit from nice beaches, sea and sun.
The results show that there is a significant correlation between different sex of men and women in choosing Thailand as their tourism destination.Thailand does have a very bad reputation among Iranian people.It can be said that how women and men think about Thailand or what their motivations are, are completely different.
Regarding the studies done, some suggestions are proposed in order to develop and improve internal tourism industry in our country:  The potentials of the country in different fields must be valued.Caspian Sea coastlines in the north of the country and unique and beautiful harbors and islands in the south of the country have peaceful beaches for water recreations.Investments in these sections can attract a large number of tourists per year.
 The money paid for recreational equipment is much higher in Kish Island than the money paid in Phuket for the same recreation.By decreasing the amount of money for the same recreation, the tourists would be more attracted and it will also prevent the currency being exited from the country.
 Branding Kish and Qeshm Islands and huge advertisement, presenting cheap tours in these routes can attract more tourists, make more income and prevent the money being exited from the country.
 According to the fact that the number of business tourists who depart to Thailand is so high, national production should be paid more attention and the clothing industry of the country can improve by presenting new cultural-economic plans.This plan can be enforced by allocating a higher tax for importing clothes from Thailand.
 Great improvement and development of Thailand in Tourism industry can be a sample for our country.Thai government support tourism industry in order to benefit from economic interests, attracting more money and more investment in this field.Since tourism absorbed the most amount of income for the country and it was substituted with the export of rice.Iran has lots of tourist attraction and can make a big fortune.
 National government of Thailand positively intervenes in the local affairs.The government has a hierarchical structure and independent ministries which are active in arranging the tourism policies of the country.So it is suggested that the parliament approve a law in order to establish the cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism ministry.In this case, specific budget is allocated to this ministry and the parliament representatives can strictly observe the function of the ministry which leads to long-term proper management and organization of the ministry.It seems that establishing a ministry for this field affects the function and the budget which is allocated to this ministry.It sounds that the cultural heritages (historical places) are not the main concern of the parliament representatives and government, while tourism industry can be one the most important source of income for the country.
 Clean and peaceful beaches of Thailand attract thousands of tourists annually.Therefore, cleaning the environment of the beaches can help attracting the attention of the tourists.
 In spite of the fact that Thailand doesn't have any historical and ancient site, it could improve the tourism industry by providing adequate capacity to meet different cultural and conventional needs of various people from all over the world and is placed in one of the top grade.While Iran has various historical places from different eras with beautiful architecture, besides it has four seasons at the same time in different parts of the country, nature and other uncountable potentials in tourism but doesn't have a good grade in the world.The tourists can be attracted by proper decisions and planning like regarding different peoples' tastes and interests in order to provide a good environment for foreign tourists which can lead to the increase of the number of the tourists and improve the grade of the country in the world.

Table 1 .
Participants' marital statusStudying the age group, 35.94% of the participants were in the age group of 21-30.Among women, more populated age group belonged to the age group of 31 to 40 with 30.73%.Men's more populated group was the age group of 21 to 30 with 43.23% (Table2).

Table 3 .
Participants educational level

Table 4 .
Participants' job status

Table 5 .
Participants' number of companions

Table 6 .
X 2 test related to business tourism

Table 7 .
X 2 test related to the role of various beach attractions in the choice of Thailand as a tourism destination

Table 8 .
Hypothesis test about the difference between men and women motivation for choosing Thailand