Thiyapa Sathiankomsorakrai, Atchira Tiwasing, Pimsiree Suwan
Nowadays, tourists are seeking for pleasant food experience, which becomes an important motivation for them to visit a destination. This study aims to discover tourist motivations towards purchase intention of local food in Thailand as well as to consider potential and capabilities of marketing promotion from government and private organizations that affect purchase intention of local food. The survey was carried out on the sample of 400 tourists purchasing local food in Pathumthani province, Thailand. In the questionnaire, tourists rated their physical motivation, interpersonal motivation, emotional motivation, and self-development motivation from their perspective using 5-point Likert scale to evaluate their opinions towards purchase intention of local food. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression with backward elimination method to investigate the most powerful effect of independent variables. The reliability of the whole questionnaire was 0.970. The results showed that tourist’s purchase intention of local food significantly correlated with self-development motivation and marketing promotion (p<0.01). Hence, in order to connect tourist to local food, modern entrepreneurs should focus on tourist’s self-development motivation rather than physiological motivation. Additionally, government and private organizations should increase the potential of marketing promotion to create tourist’s knowledge and allow them to perceive the benefits of purchasing local food.