Towards an Understanding of Long Stay Motivation: Case of Swedish Tourists in Thailand

Abstract: This paper provides a comprehensive understanding the Swedish long stay tourism in Thailand. The motivation approach was the main approach to this research through highlighting the major push and pull factors. The participation involved the total of 120 respondents. To enhance the analysis of the data, both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were employed. The total push factors that were identified were 16 while 17 pull factors were highlighted in the first stage of qualitative where input were later utilized to create a questionnaire to test the data empirically through quantitative approach. This resulted to the introduction of the factor analysis through which the push and pull factors were established in categories. Through this process, the major push and pull factors with the highest motivation were highlighted. The major push factors that are established by this study as the most influential include the desire of slow pace life, the desire for relax and carefree life, and the need for visiting the local people in Thailand. The research also highlights various major pull factors behind influence to the tourist activities which are inclusive of the relaxation atmosphere, Great food, the friendliness of local people together with the positiveness of the local people. This study answered the major research questions which are the push and pull factors to motivation in relation to Swedish long stay tourist, the causal relationship between motivation push and pull and how the social demographic factors attributes are affected by the push and pull factors of Swedish long stay tourism. In addition, the paper also treats the push and pulls motivations as multidimensional concept and determined correspondence of this concept with trinity motivation model.