Guest room safety management of resort hotels as destination in Thailand ( A case study of Khao Kor District , Phetchabun Province )

The purpose of this study is to study the satisfaction level of guest room safety management of resort hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province. A researcher adopted a quantitative methodology used a questionnaire with the accidentallymet Thai 387 tourists travelling to Khao Kor District during winter season which is considered as a high season in the area. The data from the questionnaire then is analyzed as descriptive statistics. Some interviews are conducted with the tourists to have more fruitful information. General information is analyzed by using descriptive statistics describing percentages. Information on satisfactions of in-room safety management of hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province is analyzed by using mean (X) and standard deviation (S.D.). The results revealed that the tourists are satisfied with the good condition and secured-lock guestroom door at most (X = 4.88), followed by the safe from outside danger of guestroom balcony (X = 4.84), the good condition and safe from danger of mosquito wire screens and curved steels (X = 4.74) respectively. Although the least satisfaction of the tourists about in-room safety management is light and well-ventilated guestroom toilets and clean sanitary ware (X=4.05), it is still in high level. Some useful suggestions from the tourists about the in-room safety management of hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province are the hotels should have a safety instruction in English and Chinese version because it will be useful for international tourists in case of emergency, a floor plan and fire exit way should be clear both picture and wordings so it will be easy to evacuate safely. In the meantime, next researcher should conduct other kinds of hotels in Khao Kor District such as guesthouses that are quite popular among the tourists to be aware of safety management may have.


Introduction
Khao Kor, a mountainous district in Phetchanum Province, is located in the northern part of Thailand driving around 400 kilometers from Bangkok.In a recent year, Khao Kow District becomes one of popular tourist destinations in Thailand due to its chilly weather throughout the year as it is situated around 1,800 meters above sea level (Marghescu, 2001).There are various tourist attractions such as historical, religious, cultural, and natural attracting tourists every year.Moreover, it has many choices of facilities for the tourists for example hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, local products etc.It is recommended to stay overnight in Khao Kow to feel a fresh and nice weather, especially viewing sea of mist in the morning is one of the activities the tourists should not miss (Pradit, R. and Pampasit, R., 2014).
Due to its popularity, there are wide range of hotels in Khao Kor District ready to be occupied for the tourists.There are many reasons from the tourists when selecting the hotels for their stay.Oslen & Cassee (1996) stated forces driving changed among hotel business which are capital control, assets and capital, technology, new management, and safety and security.It seems that safety and security needed to be addressed because it reflects to the tourists directly when they are traveling.The hotels' owners should intentionally focus in every single detail of the safety security system to keep their guests from all dangers; otherwise it will be a negative image of their hotels in case there are any accidents or unexpected incident to the tourists themselves or their belongings.
Besides, National Tourism Developmental Plan (Year 2012-2016) emphasizes in its fifth strategy about the integration of tourists' safety and security to all concerned parties in coordinating with preventing and protecting them from dangers Hence, it brings to the interest to the author in conducting a research about safety and security in the tourist destinations to bring up the tourists' satisfaction how the resort hotels manage the safety and security system.The data from the study will be the useful guidelines of resort hotels in Khao Kor District to develop their safety and security to the tourists and prevent all dangers may harm them.

Safety and security management for hotel business
Hotel is a place there the tourists stay overnight when they are away from their homes.Safety and security should be the initial factors that the hotels' owners should realize and manage the system to be safe for their guests Egeberg (2003) mentioned about the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the safety of services for consumers (2003) and proposed that a fire safety considered as one of the most important safety issue that the hotel should be aware and they recommended a fire safety as follows: -Safe escape way should be free passage -A hotel will should be stable for evacuating all guests.
-Safe materials and technical appliances must be in a good condition and always ready to use.
-Functional alarm systems must be easy to be heard from all in-house guests in case of fire.
-Safety instructions must be displayed clearly and noticeably in each guest room.
-Hotel staff must be well-trained to be able to evacuate the guests in case of fire and can notice the guests for all safety and security conditions.Chiang (2000) stated that a hotel should have a person responsible for safety and security which consist of a security manager, security officer, security guards, timekeepers and doorman.A hotel should have procedures to lead the safety and security functions of hotel operations for the staff to be able to keep the guests from all unexpected dangers.Also, the guest room must be free from all risk such as locks and keys for the guest rooms, closed circuit televisions (CCTV), fire alarm systems, safe boxes, communication systems and lights in guest rooms.

Tourist Satisfaction
Many tourism studies reveal that satisfaction is an excellent indicator of repurchase intentions (Petrick, 2002).Rust and Oliver (1994) concluded that tourist satisfaction occurs from the degree of a tourist believes that an experience arouses the positive feelings.Hence, tourist satisfaction is the overall emotional response due to the use of tourism product or service (Oliver, 1981).Tourists can develop their expectations of a tourism product/service performance from various sources of communication.According to Table 1, it can summarize that safety is one of the factors that tourists are concerned when the travel.Moreover, tourist satisfaction is an important positive correlation with loyalty (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993;Taylor and Baker, 1994;Cronin, Brady and Hunt, 2000).The satisfied or happy tourists will commonly maintain to purchase, while are much more willing to expanse the word-of-mouth in positive way.
It is experimentally confirmed that the study in tourists' satisfaction are key guidelines of their return to visit and the intentions of referral (Bramwell and lane, 2000;Kozak and Rimmington, 2000;Kozak, 2001).

Methodology
This study uses a quantitative research methodology with a questionnaire distributed to Thai tourists travelling to Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province during 1 January -31 January 2016.From the calculation, the sample size was 400 subjects; however, to prevent any errors or incomplete answers on some of the questionnaires, 450 questionnaires were distributed.Incompletely filled questionnaires would be thrown away and only 387 completed questionnaires were used in the analysis of the data.
Independent variables are the independent variables are demographic information such as gender, age, education, occupation and dependent variables are the satisfactions of tourists about guest room safety management Questionnaire is a research tool in this research.It has been created from relevant documents, information, concept, theory, and related researches to be a tool in collecting data.There are 4 parts which are a questionnaire about the demographics of the respondents is in part 1, and a 5-Likert scale questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect the data about the level of satisfaction of tourists about guest room safety management of resort hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Provincce.Miller (2002) stated that creating a tourist questionnaire to be good quality, there should determine the content validity and reliability before collecting the data.So, the author had a research unit from the university recheck the questionnaire and the content validity, format, and language making the questionnaire clear, understandable, and relevant to the research objectives.To examine the questionnaire's reliability, the author conducted a tryout at least 30 samples.Then, finding to reliability of the questionnaire by using (a coefficient) from Cronbach.

Results
A study of guest room safety management of resort hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province can be revealed as per the following tables  A result from table 1 in terms of general information of Thai tourists traveling to Khao Kor District in the amount of 387 persons, it can be found that 55.50% of the respondents were male.Nearly half of the respondents (44.44%) were between age 31-40.50.65% of the respondents had salary between THB 20,001-30,000 per month (around USD 570-860/month).65.63% of the respondents had obtained bachelor's degrees.Almost half of the respondents (49.88%) stayed for 2 days.80.62% of the respondents travelled for leisure.62.28% reserved the hotels due to reasonable price.65.63% of the respondents made a reservation by call directly to the hotels.
A total of 387 respondents were surveyed and asked to scale the level the satisfaction of each of 11 attributes of guest room safety management of resort hotels in Khao Kor District.A result revealed that guest room door is in a good condition and can be securely locked was indicated as the most satisfied (mean = 4.88), followed by guest room balcony is safe from outside danger (mean = 4.84).Moreover, F-test and t-test indicated the differences in gender, age, income, education, lengths of stay, purposes of visit, hotel selecting reason, and methods of reservation.

Discussion
A study in levels of tourists' satisfaction about guest room safety management of resort hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province found that the tourists were satisfied about the good condition of room door which could be securely locked at most, then the guest room balcony is safe from outside danger as summarized in table 4. Smoke detector and fire alarm are in good condition.5 Good ventilation system.The air-conditioner is in good condition with quiet noise and ready for use.6 Floor, wall, and ceiling are clean and in good condition.7 In-room furniture (e.g.closet, bed, etc.) are well-organized and in good condition, and not to block the walk way in the room.8 In-room electronic appliances (e.g.light bulbs, television, refrigerator, etc.) are in good condition and ready for use.9 Facilities for elders and disables in the toilet such as hand rails, slip sheets, etc. 10 Soft and strong bed which is not too hard to cause backache.Enough pillows and blanket.11 Guestroom toilet is light, well-ventilated and clean sanitary ware.

Suggestion
It should survey a satisfaction from international tourists or compare a satisfaction level between Thai and international tourist to know the differences in behavior.Suggestion with the least satisfied level of guest room safety management should be brought up the attention to the hotels' owners to improve a quality of safety and security because it concerns to the tourists' safety and security.If this problem is ignored and causes a trouble to the tourists, they may spread out the negative experiences to others and will of course affect to the hotel's reputation.

Table 1 .
Determinants of tourist satisfaction in tourist destinations

Table 1 :
Determinants of Tourist Satisfaction indicated by various authors Source: Pileliene and Grigaliunaite (2014)

Table 2 .
General information

Table 3 .
Tourists' satisfaction level of guest room safety management of resort hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun province.

Table 4 .
Rank of guest room safety management of resort hotels in Khao Kor District, Phetchabun Province