Marketing Strategies for Improving Golf Tourism Management for Selected Golfer Segmentation

The purpose of this research is to study the structure of golf tourism in Thailand both demand and supply sides. At the beginning, decision factors of golf destination selection were studied. Facilities capabilities for golf tourism in Thailand were studied and compared to the best practice. These lead to the development of marketing strategies for improving golf tourism in Thailand. Primary and secondary data related to marketing strategies for golf tourism were collected. Sample groups are the foreign tourists who come to play golf and other activities in the provinces that are tourist destination. Further, marketing mix strategy was used as a tool for marketing strategy development. It suggests that vision of golf tourism should be “To be the best alternative golfing destination by 2020”. Mission of golf tourism should be increasing income from golf tourism which composed of two ideas. The first idea is the development of product and service package to encourage more golf tourisms to come and stay longer in Thailand. Another idea is to make word of mouth in positive direction for presenting concept of Thai golf as “Create Your Ultimate Golf Lifestyle”. The researchers suggest five marketing strategies, 1) Present Thai golf theme as “Create Your Ultimate Golf Lifestyle” continuously 2) Develop Thailand tourism as a leading industry for golf tourism 3) Improve service quality to give good experiences and memorizes to the tourists for promoting the tourists to come back again 4) Increase travel opportunity by arranging national golf tournament and 5) Support golf course sustainability management, as the Thailand golf tourism improvement direction.