Marketing and promotional strategies: A Guideline for café hopping tourism in Nakhon Phanom Province

Abstract

The main objectives of the present article were to study the current situation of the marketing operations of the café business, to investigate behaviors and marketing mix of café businesses in Nakhon Phanom Province, and to design a guideline for marketing strategies development to promote café hopping as a new type of tourism. The data were collected through a questionnaire distributed to 400 customers of coffee shops on the Mekhong riverside road in Nakhon Phanom Province, and were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings showed that the majority of the participants were female, single, aged between 21 – 30 years old, and were bachelor’s degree holders. They visited the cafés for leisure during 12:01 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Less sweet beverages were more preferred to most customers, while average spending on drinks at the coffee shops of individual customers ranged between 51-100 baht per visit. The respondents also reported that their most favorite café in the area was 8E88 Eatery-Café & Bar because the shop met the customers’ expectations most. Furthermore, the results suggested that coffee shops in the area along the the Mekhong riverside street should follow a similar business platform harmoniously to establish a concrete tourism route for café hopping.   The respondents also suggested that the cafés should arrange a promotion campaign during their least busy time, that is from Monday to Friday during 6:00 – 10:00 p.m. to attract more customers. The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the most significant concerns of tourists, therefore, another significant advice from the customers was that the cafés should strengthen their preventive measures of Covid-19 in line with public health guidelines strictly to increase customer confidence