- Most visitors visit Chiang Mai as a stopover
Chiang Mai is one of Thailand’s main important city that has connections internationally with many foreign visitors making businesses or settling organizations in it over the past decades due to its excellent infrastructure with international direct flight connections or transportation connection to many different rich or high in economic potential countries such as China and Singapore. Many businessmen would probably make Chiang Mai as a stopover to settle down some documents or business and then fly to other places or countries to work on other businesses.
Also, because many tourism agencies would give packages to many tourists, giving them a trip throughout Thailand, many tourists would just visit Chiang Mai for a few days and continue their trip to other places in Thailand.
- Most Tourists stay in Chiang Mai for a maximum of one week.
Even though Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second largest city, overall the city is relatively small. Many tourists would be able to travel throughout Chiang Mai for about less than a week. Also because many Traveling agencies provides many packages that is to travel throughout Thailand in one to two weeks, in each city, the traveling agencies would only give them four to five days of trip in Chiang Mai.
- Tourists would prefer to stay in local hotels than in high-class hotels.
Most of the Traveling agencies would provide many packages that include high-class hotels to their tourist, hoping to give them the best trip in Thailand and to earn more money. Furthermore, there are also many tourists that would rather live in local motels due to many different reasons such as due to the cheap price of the local motels or to have more opportunities to experience about how the local people would live Chiang Mai and the learn more about the different cultures in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
- The main purpose of most tourists to travel to Chiang Mai is to go on a holiday, to relax and entertain themself.
With the pressure that most people would get during their working times, many tourists would visit Chiang Mai to relax themselves under Chiang Mai’s tropical season with much sunlight and warm temperature. Also, they would use this chance to entertain themselves with Thailand’s numerous festivals and outdoor activities such as night markets.
- Most Tourists would prefer to eat Thai food than any other kinds of food in Chiang Mai.
Due to Thailand’s low inflation rate, many tourists would enjoy themselves with Chiang Mai’s large variety, cheap and traditional Thai food. Also, because there are many dried traditional Thai snacks that could be bought for tourist and as presents, many tourists would buy Thai snacks as their choice.
Methodology
In the following, are my steps to complete this Geography Coursework:
- 60 sheets of Questionnaire
- Camera
- A pencil
- A notebook
- Work out 5 hypotheses related to the aim of the coursework
- Decide a guessed theory related to the aim of the coursework
- Explain the theory behind the hypotheses.
- Explain what the hypotheses would show you.
- Decide on ‘what the things are needed to know” for the project’s objectives.
- Define the target respondents.
- Choose the method(s) of reaching your target respondents.
- Decide on question content.
- Develop the question working.
- Put questions into a meaningful order and format.
- Check the length of the questionnaire.
- Pre-test the questionnaire.
- Develop the final survey form.
- Decide when the data is going to be collected.
- Morning
- Afternoon
- or at Night
- Decide the locations to collect the data.
On our 2nd day of the trip, we went to our first attraction site to carry out our survey, the Elephant Camp. The Elephant camp is an attraction site that almost all of the tourists would visit on their trip when visiting Chiang Mai; so therefore, this is a place where I could find a lot of tourists.
On this first visit, I stayed near a restaurant with many tourist groups eating in there, hoping to be the first to interview the tourists in there.
On our 2nd day, at night, we went to the Walking Street to continue to carry out our survey. The Walking Street market opens only on Sundays, which therefore might attract many tourists to visit this street.
I kept walking back and forth in the street to find as much tourists as possible, hoping to complete twenty questionnaires.
- Temple “What Phra That Doi Suthep”
On our 3rd day, we went to Chiang Mai’s most famous Temple, Temple What Phra That Doi Suthep. This temple is famous for its history, so therefore, this would be a great place for me to collect my data.
During this visit I’ve collected 15 questionnaires.
On our 4th day, we went to Temple “Wat Chiang Rhun”. This temple’s format is very special, so therefore, there would be some tourist who would like to visit there and take photographs.
During this visit, I’ve collected 5 questionnaires.
On our 4th day, we went to the Temple of “Wat Chedi Lunag” after we went to the previous temple. This temple was made three hundred years ago, and it still had kept its original image. So therefore, a lot of people might be interested in this temple and take a visit.
During this visit, I’ve collected 8 questionnaires.
On our 4th day, after we went to our last temple, we went to a shopping mall for a rest. During that stay, I’ve collected 3 questionnaires.
On our 5th day, we went to the Night Bazaar. Like the Walking Street, it is famous for its shopping, and there are a lot of foreign tourists walking and shopping there. So therefore, this is also a very good place for me to complete all of my questionnaires.
- Summarize the collected data.
- Create a Table
- Find out the percentage of each data.
- Decide how to present the collected data.
- With Graphs, charts, explanations and maps.
- Analyze the collected data.
- Work out a conclusion for the 5 hypothesis
- Is my hypothesis true? Explain.
Question 1:
For your stay in Chiang Mai, is it your final destination or is it as a stopover?
Question 1 asks my interviewees whether they are going to stay in Chiang Mai as their final destination, or are they going to fly to somewhere else later. According the questionnaires, fifty-two out of the seventy questionnaires shows that the interviewee stays in Chiang Mai as their final destination. While the other eighteen out of seventy questionnaires show that the interviewee are going to fly to other destinations later.
In addition, the table beneath shows a pattern that even there is an uneven patter of having a relatively low percentage between each two locations .The three locations that have the lowest percentage compared to the other percentages in other locations. This may mean that these locations are mostly well-known in the local population or visitors who had been to Chiang Mai before and that they are traveling without the lead of a tour guide. Therefore, these visitors might want to travel to other places in Thailand. On the other hand, while these are unpopular sites that travel agencies would not bring their customers to so therefore, these visitors would not be able to travel to other places in Thailand.
Also, according to the pie chart the percentage of tourists going to stay in Chiang Mai as their final destination is higher (with 72%) than tourists that are going to other destination afterwards (with 28%).This result shows that my first hypothesis is suggested wrongly. Most tourists visit Chiang Mai as their final destination, and not as a stopover.
Question 2:
How long are you going to stay in Chiang Mai?
Question 2 asks my interviewees, how long are they going to stay in Chiang Mai. According to my questionnaires, compared to other ten questionnaires that represent the interviewed tourists would stay in Chiang Mai more than one week, the other sixty out of my seventy questionnaires show that the interviewed tourists would stay in Chiang Mai for a maximum of one week (between one day to seven days), with more tourists staying in Chiang Mai for 2 to 4 days than 5 to 7 days.
In addition, as the table beneath shows, most tourists would not stay in Chiang Mai for less than a day and more than a week. This would mean that most tourists would stay in Chiang Mai for between two to seven days. This therefore would make a curve between these two readings.
Also, according the bar chart and tables below, there are more tourists going to travel to other places after their stay in Chiang Mai, with 78%, than staying in Chiang Mai as their final destinations, with 22%.
This result shows that my first hypothesis is suggested correctly. Most tourists would stay in Chiang Mai the maximum of one week and not longer than eight days or shorter than one day.
Question 3
Are you staying in local hotels or high-class (above 3 stars) hotels?
Question 3 asks my interviewees, whether they are going to stay in local hotels or high class (above 3 stars) hotel. According to my questionnaires, the difference between tourists staying in local hotels or high class hotels is relatively small. There are thirty-four interviewee that chose staying in a local hotel, two readings lower, than the tourists who chose to stay in a high class hotel (with 36 readings).
According the pie chart and tables below, there are more tourists going to travel to other places after their stay in Chiang Mai, with 78%, than staying in Chiang Mai as their final destinations, with 22%.
This result shows that my third hypothesis is suggested wrongly. Most tourists in Chiang Mai would live in high class hotels than live in local hotels.
Question4
What is your main purpose to your visit to Chiang Mai?
Question 4 asks my interviewees, what their purpose for travelling to Chiang Mai was. According to my questionnaires, there are fifty-seven out of seventy of my questionnaires that shows that my interviewed tourists chose that that their main purpose for their visit to Chiang Mai is on a holiday. While there are only nine out of seventy interviewed tourists’ main purpose is on a business trip, and lastly only four tourists’ main purpose is to visit relatives.
Also, according to the bar chart and tables below, there are more tourists travelling to Chiang Mai as a holiday, with 67% than the other two, which is business with 24% and visit relatives with 9%.
This result shows that my fourth hypothesis is suggested correctly, that most tourists in Chiang Mai goes on a holiday than going on a business trip, visiting relatives or others. This could prove that Chiang Mai is a tourist city more than a business city
Question 5
What kind of food would you eat most in Chiang Mai?
Question 5 asks my interviewees, what kind of food they would eat most during their Chiang Mai trip. According to my questionnaires, fifty-six out of seventy questionnaires show that the interviewed tourists would eat Thai food in Chiang Mai, other than other food. Whereas, there is only ten out of the seventy interviewed tourists would eat the food from their nation in Chiang Mai, and lastly, only four out of the seventy interviewed tourists would eat other kinds of food in Chiang Mai.
According the pie chart and tables below, there are more tourists going to eat Thai food during their stay, with 69%, 17% of the interviewees are going to eat their food from their nation and only 14% of the people are going to eat other kinds of food than Thai food or food from their nation.
This result shows that my fifth hypothesis is suggested correctly, that most tourists in Chiang Mai would like to taste the local food in Thailand, and would eat Thai food, instead of other kinds of food, such as food from their Nation.
Conclusion
- Hypothesis 1: Most visitors visit Chiang Mai as a stopover
With my collected data, I could not support my theory that most visitors visit Chiang Mai as a stopover. According to my collected data, there is more percentage of people that I interviewed during my stay in Chiang Ma, the tourists stays in Chiang Mai as their final destination and not as their stopover.
Maybe because Chiang Mai is one of Thailand’s major airports, many tourists might travel to other cities in Thailand that are not able to have any direct flights to other countries and then they would travel to Chiang Mai as their final destination and fly back to their own nation.
- Hypothesis 2: Most Tourists stay in Chiang Mai for a maximum of one week.
With my overall data, I could support my second hypothesis that most tourists stays in Chiang Mai for a maximum of one week. According to my collected data, the highest percentage of tourists staying in Chiang Mai is 2-4 days.
Even though there are a lot of attractions in Chiang Mai, not many tourists would want to stay in Chiang Mai for more than a week. This might be because Chiang Mai is their final destination, and many people would rather go back to their own country than to stay in Chiang Mai.
- Hypothesis 3: Tourists would prefer to stay in local hotels than in high-class hotels.
With my collected data, I could not support my theory that tourists would prefer to say in local hotels than in high-class (above three stars) hotel, with a slightly percentage of 36% interviewed tourists living in high-class hotels and 34% living in local hotels.
This might be because many tourists have a quite stable job and could afford to travel to Chiang Mai; many tourists are also able to afford to live in a better surround with more facilities.
- Hypothesis 4: The main purpose of most tourists to travel to Chiang Mai is to go on a holiday, to relax and entertain themself.
With my overall data, I could support my fourth hypothesis that the main purpose of most tourists to travel to Chiang Mai is to go on a holiday. With my collect data, there are 57% of the tourists going on a holiday and only 9% on a business trip and 4% for a visiting trip.
Thailand is famous for its attractions sites, for relaxing and shopping. This is therefore a very obvious reason that more tourists visit Chiang Mai as a holiday.
- Hypothesis 5: Most Tourists would prefer to eat Thai food than any other kinds of food in Chiang Mai.
With my collected data, I could support that most tourists would prefer to eat Thai food than any other kinds of food during their stay in Chiang Mai. According to my data, 56% of the interviewed tourist chooses to eat Thai food during their stay in Chiang Mai, and only 10% of the tourist would eat food from their nation and 4% of the tourist would eat other food than Thai food or food from their nation in Chiang Mai.
Most of the tourists would eat Thai food is because many people would like to taste each country’s traditional food. Many tourists could eat food from their nations anytime when they’re back home, but traditional Thai meal would be a bit rare in countries other than Thailand. So therefore, more people would use this chance to eat more Thai food, during their stay in Chiang Mai.
Evaluation
- Throughout my process of working on this coursework, I have learnt how to communicate with people that I do not know, how to cope with different people.
- How to design a good questionnaire and how to grab hold of the time and complete a range of questionnaires.
- During my interview with the foreign tourists in Chiang Mai, I found out that not many of them were willing to accept my questionnaire. Many tourists would just pretend they cannot see me or just walk away while I was asking my questions. This could create a difficulty in my research.
- In this coursework, my collected data are relatively biased. This is because during my seven days trip, I had asked foreign tourists to complete all of my seventy questionnaires and all of them were either foreigners or English-speaking Asians. This could make my evidence when concluding much stronger.
- Because this is a personal problem, there is no correct solution to this problem. But next time, I would try to improve on my asking technique and the attitude towards my interviewee. This is because, sometimes, when the tourists didn’t accept my questionnaire, I would become irritated.
- If I had the chance again, I would try to type my questionnaire in different kinds of languages so that I could ask more different people and not only asking English-speaking people.
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How the “study” could be improved:
- My questions in the questionnaire could be a bit more specific.
- I could create more minor questions related to the major question.
- I could have an interview with the local tour guide and the foreigner tour guide to know more about the culture in a local citizen perspective, and in a foreigner perspective.
- The trip could have more sites for us to collect more data from our questionnaire
- I could read some books about the culture of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Bibliography
- Data for my Introduction:
-
(1)
-
(2)
- Photographs throughout my coursework:
- Fig 3.1
- Fig 3.2
- Fig 3.3
- Fig 3.4
- Fig 3.5
- New “Key Geography” for GCSE
- AUTHOR: David Waugh & Tony Bushell
- PUBLISHED IN: year 2002
- PUBLISHED BY: Nelson Thornes Ltd
- The New “Wider World”- second edition
- AUTHOR: David Waugh
- PUBLISHED IN: year 2003
- PUBLISHED BY: Nelson Thornes Ltd
APPENDIX