Examining the Effect of Tourists’ Motivation and Satisfaction towards NAKHONCHAIBURIN Tourism Cluster

Abstract

This study investigates tourist motivation for travelling to archaeological tourism destinations in NAKHONCHAIBURIN (NCBR) cluster in Thailand. Through convenience sampling via onsite intercept method, 400 tourists have completed a self-administrated survey. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM)technique was used to test the hypotheses. The results of the study revealed that travel motivation and perceived authentic value of destination could influence tourist satisfaction with archaeological tourism destinations in the NCBR tourism clusters. The results also show that perceived authentic value of destination could mediate the relationship between tourist motivation and satisfaction. The findings provide value to destination marketing organizations (DMOs), which can be useful for target market strategies.