Measuring the motivation to ride bicycles for tourism through a comparison of tourist attractions

In Thailand, supporting bicycle riding is regarded as an essential strategy. Many organizations are developing campaigns and activities to promote bicycle riding. However, most Thai people do not enjoy riding bicycles. Thus, this study aims to understand the motivational components and compare the different motivations for bicycle riding in various areas using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Six factors were considered: self-development, contemplation, exploration, physical challenge, stimulus seeking, and social interaction. The samples used in this study were 798 Thai tourists. The results of the second-order CFA indicate that six factors indicated motivation to ride bicycles at these tourist attractions at a statistical significance of 0.01. Moreover, the invariance analysis of the model parameters for the two areas through chi-square difference testing shows that factor loadings, intercepts, and the structural path have different values for tourist attractions in the mountains and those by the sea at a statistical significance of 0.01. Thus, models for tourist attractions in the mountain and those by the sea should be developed separately to determine suitable policies for these areas. Consequently, the government sectors and other involved organizations should use these indicators to develop more precise and suitable policies to promote bicycle riding for targeted groups. The CFA loadings obtained from this study can be used for ranking the priority of improving motivation for riding bicycles. Regarding mountain tourist attractions, contemplation was the factor having maximum CFA loading (β=0.935), followed by exploration (β=0.900). For sea tourist attractions, contemplation was the factor having the highest CFA loadings equal 0.992 followed by stimulus seeking (β=0.937).