DOCTORAL THESIS IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES ON VIETNAMESES’ DECISION-MAKING PROCESS FOR DOMESTIC TOURISM ACTIVITY by The Son Ngo, MBA Supervised by: Dr. Mizanur Rahman, Dr. Edna Ijeoma Stan-Maduka This research was undertaken under the auspices of London School of Commerce Submitted in partial fulfilment for the award of the degree of Doctor of Business Administration University of Wales Trinity Saint David 2020 DECLARATION 1 DECLARATION SHEET This sheet MUST be signed and included within the thesis This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated.
Where correction services have been used the extent and nature of the correction are marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations.
ii STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for deposit in the University’s digital repository. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Mizanur Rahman, for the continuous support and great instruction along the course of my research and writing thesis. His motivation and advice have helped me to overcome many difficulties and formulate critical thinking and mindset of a doctoral level.
Lastly, his patience and encouragement have helped me to surpass with a struggle in writing and presentation skills. I greatly appreciate Ms. Nina Gillani, Mrs. Nawneet Cheema and the LSC library team for their support and assistance during the time I attended the course.
They have made a professional and friendly library environment that I found it comfortable and enjoyable to spend time for study and research. I would like to thank my classmate for their participation in building my survey questionnaires. I also want to thank my acquaintances from the former course for their assistance in distributing the survey to the targeted audience. Toward the end of this research, I also received advice and suggestions from my co- workers with a thorough understanding of the thesis themes and already had experience in doctoral thesis writing.
These feedbacks, in addition to the examination board’s report, had helped to clarify many concerns in both the content and structure incurred during my correction period. Therefore, I would like to express my gratitude to them Finally, my family has sponsored the whole program as well as my daily expenses. In addition, my uncle had also provided me with accommodation and encouragement for the past five years, since I started the MBA programme. iv ABSTRACT In this paper, the researcher attempted to determine the list of dependent and independent variables associated to explore the influence of demographics on consumer behaviour, in the context of Vietnamese domestic tourists.
The author expected that, through the findings of this research, it would be possible to expand on the systematic database set up adopted in this research for future topics that target relevant subjects. This paper was also made with further distinction to precedent works by other Vietnamese authors in terms of contents and structuring. The majority of students’ theses were designed to associate with the specific enterprise as an isolated case study, while the other type of scientific researches (e., scholars’ articles, journals, internal documents…) are established from a macro-perspective for the whole industry. This thesis is organized as a continuous structure of five chapters, each with a specific objective that ultimately contributes to addressing the research questions under investigation.
After the rigorous process of reviewing precedent literature and establishing conceptualizing academic units identified to the three main theoretical domains, the author was able to draw out a conceptual framework presented at the end of Chapter 2. One of the main concerns that place as research question – the demographic variables – was determined to include nine components: Gender, Age, Geography, Education Level, Employment status, Occupation, Income, Family status, Social class After evaluating the different methodologies, the researcher concluded that conducting an empirical study would be the most suitable approach to address the research question. Result of the Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) has condensed the initial 35 items for decision-making process down to 30 items, divided into four-factor groups. These four groups, however, provided a different perspective to the content of decision-making process from the well-known 5-stage model.
However, only three factors “Preference of destination”, “Involvement of family” and “Source of information” were revealed to be statistically significant. Excluding the three elements “Occupation”, “Employment” and “Social class”, other demographic factors were found to be correlated toward the decision- making process of Vietnamese tourists when they decide on domestic travelling. Specifically, the latter group of demographic variables were found to have affected directly or indirectly (through post hoc variables) the three identified decision-making factors, but none was found to be presented in all three dependent factors. Based on the analysed result, the author proposed suitable suggestions with respect to the findings and methodological aspects.
The problem with consumers’ behavioural models v is that they couldn’t account for the unpredictable nature of consumers. Therefore, the author believed that an independent study with a sole concentration on this field would be beneficial. Furthermore, instead of trying to cover and justify the wide dimension of the topic of consumer behaviour in general, a narrow approach concerning certain merchandise and well-defined aspects of consumption activities would be an appropriate study. Regarding methodological application, future studies may modify the questionnaire based on this study template and run the confirmatory factor analysis to analyse the data collected.
On the other hand, a completely different set of analytical methods is also encouraged for more diversity vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii LIST OF TABLES. 11 LIST OF FIGURES.
Background of the study. Statement of the problem. Aim and objectives of the research. Significance of the research.
Structure of the study. 17 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Age/ stage in life cycle. Gender and gender identity.
Culture and subculture. A distinction between consumer behaviour and consumer decision-making process. Consumer decision-making process. Discussion of precedent researches.
Demographic profile in previous studies. Variation in chronological-based division system. Consumer involvement and Impulsive buying. Divergence of consumer type and consumption style.
Tourism service industry. An overview of the industry. The economic and social influence of the tourism industry. Review of related tourist studies.
Hypotheses of the research. Conceptual framework of the research. 75 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Research assumptions basis: Ontology and epistemology.
Reliability and validity. Overview of Vietnamese consumer characteristics. Economic and social background. Vietnamese consumer characteristics.
Overview of the data collected. Summary of problems in questionnaire responses. Cronbach alpha test result. Summary of EFA findings.
The influence of gender. The influence of age. The influence of education level. The influence of family status.
The influence of income earner and social class. 146 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Reflecting to the Research aims and objectives. Implication in technical and methodology aspects.
Implication in practical aspect. Limitations of the research. Recommendations for future study. In terms of research result.
In terms of research methodology. The survey questionnaire. Illustration of the three components: research paradigm, research methodology and research design. A simplified research methodology framework.
Formula used to calculate sample size. Coding of questionnaire survey used in analysis. International tourist arrival to Vietnam from 2010 to 2018. Domestic tourist of Vietnam from 2010 to 2018.
EM Estimated Statistics (Little’s Missing Completely At Random (MCAR) test). Distribution of Employment status categorized by Profession. Classification of decision-making role for traveling by gender and income earner status. Multicollinearity test result with Gender.
Multicollinearity test result with Age. Multicollinearity test result with Geographic. Multicollinearity test result with Employment Status. Multicollinearity test result with Education Level.
Multicollinearity test result with Social Class. Multicollinearity test result with Profession. Multicollinearity test result with Travel Frequency. Multicollinearity test result with Role as Decision Maker.
Multicollinearity test result with Role as Income Earner. Multicollinearity test result with Family Status. Communalities table of the first model (35 variables). Communalities table of the second model (30 variables).
Result of Velicer’s Map for the original model with 35 variables. Retake on the factors extracted and reliability for the first model using direct oblimin method with variable ‘Destination choice 2’ taken out. Result of Velicer’s Map for the 2nd model with 30 variables. Parallel analysis for 35 variables, sample size 450.
Parallel analysis for 30 variables, sample size 450. Result of the factor loading for the chosen model of 30 variables. 236 x LIST OF TABLES Table 2. Summary of demographic variables adaptation for this research and their reference sources.
Sample structure distribution by age and gender. Employment status by education level crosstabulation table. Distribution of employment status by age. Crosstabulation table between the number of children and marriage status.
Distribution of travel frequency by the position as a household income earner. Distribution of travel frequency by family income. Distribution of Decision-maker role by position as a household income earner. KMO and Bartlett’s Test result of the models.
Structure of factor extracted and reliability for the first model. Structure of factor extracted and reliability for the second model. Model Summary with “Preference of destination” as a dependent variable. ANOVA for a model of “Preference of destination” as a dependent variable.
Coefficients with “Preference of destination” as a dependent variable. Model Summary with “Involvement of family member” as an independent variable. ANOVA for the model with “Involvement of family member” as an independent variable. Coefficients with “Involvement of family member” as a dependent variable.
Model Summary with “Destination distance and attachment” as an independent variable. ANOVA for the model with “Destination distance and attachment” element as an independent variable. Model Summary with “Source of information” as a dependent variable137 Table 4. ANOVA with “Source of information” as a dependent variable.
Coefficients with “Source of information” as a dependent variable. Summary of the result of hypothesis testing. Summarized correlation matrix of the regression analysis. 140 11 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.
Records of articles in “consumer behaviour” and “consumer behaviour in tourism” for period 2010 - 2021. The collective influence of social class to lower- and higher-class consumers’ psychological and behavioural. Model of demographic variable. Consumer decision-making.
the simplified consumer decision-making model. The extended consumer decision-making process model. Model of Motivational Process. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.
Depiction of tourism leakage. Conceptual framework of the research. Vietnam’s Consumer Expenditure. Inflation rate of Vietnam from 1990 to 2020 (Compared to the previous year).
Average monthly income of Vietnamese consumers recorded for period 2008 - 2017. Vietnamese connected spender within different income. Overall summary of missing values. Distribution of sample by geographic criteria.
Summary report of individual income and family income. Scree plot graph of the first model. Scree plot graph of the first model. Consumer decision-makingSource: Patel, 2015.
Background of the study According to MacInnis and Folkes (2010), there has been exponential growth of academic research concerning the demographic impact on economic phenomena over the past 60 years. Throughout papers of consumer behaviour written over the year, it was either “influences” or “impact factors” that were made into research headlines rather than “demographic” factors.