Motivation and working behaviour in frontier tourism business of Thailand-Laos

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to study the motivations and working behaviour of the frontier tourism business at the Thailand-Laos border, to compare the working relationship between travel agencies and the hotel business and to study the relationship between working motivation and working behaviour in the tourism business by using a total sampling of 140 persons: 112 persons from the hotel business and 28 persons from travel agencies. The personnel in the tourism business were comprised of 42.1% males and 57.9% females. The ages ranged accordingly: 15–25 years old (15.0%), 26–35 years old (53.6%), and 36–45 years old (26.4%). The educational levels of the sample group were: high school diploma or equivalent (28.6%), associate’s degree or equivalent (27.9%) and bachelor’s degree (27.9%). Most of the personnel in the tourism business had a working motivation in the moderate range and the others were in the high range. Most of the personnel in tourism business thought that their work quantities were in the moderate range. The overall of the work qualities were in the high range. Therefore, the personnel were considered to be worthy resources for having an average in the highest range. For overall abilities they were in the high range and their average rating for morals was in the high range. And, the relationship with the organization of the personnel in the tourism business was in the moderate however, if someone criticized their organization, they would suddenly rise into the high range. In addition, the results of the hypothesis: 1) the working behaviour in the travel agencies and hotel business had the same significance rank of 0.05. 2) the working motivation of the personnel in travel agencies had a positive relationship with their working behaviour having a significance rank of 0.05 by using the Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation result of 0.69. 3) the working motivation of the personnel in the hotel business also had a positive relationship with their working behaviour having a significance rank of 0.05 by using the Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation result of 0.74, and 4) the working motivation of the personnel in the tourism business also had a positive relationship with their working behaviour having a significance rank of 0.05 by using the Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation result of 0.79.