Selection of local restaurant by consumers in Phuket Province

Abstract

The purposes of this research were: 1) to study the personal factors of consumers for choosing local restaurants in Phuket Province, 2) to study the consumption factors of local restaurants in Phuket Province, 3) to study the factors of marketing mix in the local restaurants in Phuket Province, 4) to compare the level of importance of the marketing mix factors in the local restaurants in Phuket Province classified by personal factors of respondents, 5)to compare the level of importance of the marketing mix factors in the consumers' use of local restaurants in Phuket Province classified according to the use of local restaurants, and 6) to present guidelines for local restaurant development in Phuket Province. A sample group of 400 people and local restaurant operators in Phuket has 16 cases. The research instruments are questionnaires and interviews. The statistical techniques used for data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, one-way analysis of variance and analysis of descriptive data. The research found that: 1) most consumers were female, aged 36-40 years, with a bachelor's degree, being a private company employee, with an estimated income of 10,001–20,000 baht, and they resided in Phuket. 2) As for the reasons of choosing to use local restaurants, it was found that most of the consumers chose to consume local food, because of their unique identity and difference from conventional food. The most common food consumed was Hokkien fried noodles. The main course and side dishes commonly being consumed was Stir Fried Liang Bai with Shrimp Roe, and a popular savory snack was Hu Shae, sweet snacks were using Gosui and a popular dessert was Oh Aew. Most people consumed local food once a month and was paying approximately 901- 1,300 baht for each meal. 3) Consumers valued the overall marketing mix at a high level. The determinants were in descending order, local food, price, construction personnel and physical presentation and distribution service marketing promotion. 4) Comparing the level of importance of the marketing mix factors in consumers’ selection of local restaurants in Phuket Province found that gender, age, education level, occupation, monthly average income and different residences put importance on the factors of marketing mix with no difference except the gender was not different with statistical significance at the .05. 5) Comparing the level of importance of the marketing mix factors in consumers’ selection of local restaurants in Phuket Province found that the reasons for consuming local food, popular types of local food, popular local food items, frequency of local food consumption and the cost of consumption per time were different. Paying attention to the factors of marketing mix, there was no statistically significant difference at the .05 level. And 6) guidelines for local restaurant development in Phuket Province were to select raw materials directly from the producer sources in order to maintain freshness and quality. In addition, a standard price threshold should be set and suitable for the quality of local food and so do distribution channels. There could be an online order and advertising through various media such as websites or other media in order to disseminate customers to know more about restaurants. In addition, there should be a focus on training employees to recognize the importance of service and on educating employees about service skills. At the same time, the restaurants should be designed to be unique, easy to remember, and technology should be adopted, for example in the matter of receiving food orders to achieve accuracy, speed and error prevention.