Malaysian Tourists’ Motivation, Involvement of Southeast Asia Tourist:A Case Study of Singapore and Bangkok

Tourism in Southeast Asia is a very popular past time activity with strong government support for tourism within Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. These destinations consist of Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand, as well as others by Malaysian tourists. Therefore, it is of interest to examine the travel behavior of Malaysian tourists who visit these destinations for tourism. The impetus this research is to better understand how a select group of tourists from Malaysia perceive their experiences factors influencing motivation. The purpose of this study is to explore the involvement of Malaysian tourists towards a select part of Southeast Asia: Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 394 usable surveys were collected from a sample of Malaysian tourists in the city of Kuala Lumpur. The study identified that Malaysian tourists are mostly young well-educated adult females with a high level of involvement in tourism and tend to travel alone or with families. Involvement to travel and the selection of the travel destination were multi-faceted. Malaysian tourists indicated high motivation to revisit and recommend Singapore and Bangkok to friends and relatives.