The Effects of Motivation and Satisfaction on Destination Loyalty at the Thailand -Laos (PDR) Border

Over the past few decades, the influence of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) program and Asian Economic Community (AEC) framework of ASEAN has led to an increasing number of tourists visiting Thailand and Laos (PDR) border sites. Accordingly, the Thailand-Laos (PDR) border destination appears to have a high tourism market potential as it is seen as an important tourist attraction, nationally and internationally. The investigation of cross-border tourism in this area will benefit the development of the tourism industry along Thailand and Laos (PDR). Consequently, the current study aims to investigate a structural model explaining destination loyalty and its inter-relationship with push and pull motivation, and satisfaction, in the context of Thai revisits to the Thailand-Laos (PDR) border destination. A total of 400 questionnaires were collected and analysed by a Structural Equation Modeling software called Mplus version 6.12. Findings of this study reveal that push motivation and satisfaction are both determinants of Thai visitors’ destination loyalty for the Thailand-Laos border. Implications for Thailand and Laos (PDR) border destination managers are also discussed.