The marketing factors influencing consumer decisions to use the services of sports and exercise centers in Thailand.

The purpose of this study was to investigate consumer’s behavior in using the services provided by an exercise unit, sports and exercise center in Thailand, and the marketing factors affecting their decisions to use the services. Use was made of a research framework or marketing mix strategic theory (7 P’s of marketing) in order to use the findings as the guidelines for creating effective marketing mix strategies for exercise centers. The researcher purposively sampled 400 customers and three managers of a Sports and Exercise Center. The research instruments were questionnaires and constructive interviews checked by calculating the construct validity with the index of item objective congruence (IOC) from expert’s considerations and the reliability with data triangulation. According to the findings, it was found that the majority of the customers of the Sports and Exercise Center were males and between 20 – 30 years of age. The important component for creating efficient marketing strategies for exercise centers is clearly the focus on the customers by generally considering their demands, needs and wants, then creating and developing appropriate services, examining price rates which are considered to be affordable and acceptable for them, and using good communication processes between service providers and their customers in order to provide publication channels and improve services. Importantly, it is evident that the service providers have to find ways to provide convenient services for their customers in all respects in order to meet their demands and provide worthwhile services. Therefore management must endeavour to strengthen service quality, comprising facilities and skilled instructors, in order to grow customer loyalty, as well as to increase the desire to exercise