Modeling e-CRM for Community Tourism in Upper Northeastern Thailand

The paper is designed to provide a quantitative measure of e-CRM for community tourism in Upper Northeastern Thailand. The purpose of this study is to develop the e-CRM model in the upper Northeast of Thailand. Specifically, the objective of this study is to examine the validity and reliability of the four-factor model in e-CRM. The research mainly involves a survey design. It includes a pilot test using undergraduate business students at Udon Thani Rajabhat University for pretesting questionnaire items. In addition, this investigate into website character, website contact interactivity, shopping convenience, and care and service attributes necessitates uncovering variables of interest and this involves a large-scale field study. The data are collected via personal questionnaires from 447 samples. They include the customers of hospitality and tourism industries in 3 provinces such as Udon Thani, Nongkhai, Loei. Respondents are asked to rate, on a five-point Likert scale, their agreement or disagreement on the e-CRM attributes. LISREL program is used for data analysis since the proposed model is a simultaneous system of equations having latent constructs and multiple indicators. Quantitative data are analyzed by the statistical techniques, namely exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. It is found from the study that the effect of website character and shopping convenience, on care and service through website contact interactivity. The managerial implications are discussed.