Consumer survey of foreigners and Koreans about Korean and Thai foods and restaurants

This study was conducted to investigate the consumer perceptions of Koreans and foreigners towards Korean and Thai foods and restaurants. Self-administered questionnaires were collected from 129 foreign residents and 291 Koreans who have been members or the Thai travel association in the seoul area. statistical data analysis was performed using the SPSS v 10.0 program. From the evaluation of Korean and Thai foods and restaurants by foreigners, Thai foods/restaurants showed significantly higher ratings in the attributes of 'Food appearance', 'Food smell', 'Overall food taste', and 'Exotic food taste' In the attributes of 'Use of various food seasonings', 'Variety of food ingredients', 'Variety of menu', 'Food sanitation', and 'Fast restaurant service', Thai food/restaurants showed higher ratings than Koreanfood/restaurants. Korean foods were considered more salty than Thai foods. However, overall satisfaction of Thai and Korean foods/restaurants was similar at about '3.7' points on the 5-point Likert scale. From the evaluation by Koreans, there were no significant differences in the attributes of 'Food appearance', 'Food smell', and 'overall food taste'. however. the rating or 'Exotic food taste' was significantly higher in Thai foods. In the attributes of 'Use of various food seasonings', 'Variety of food ingredients', and 'Variety of menu', Thai food/restaurants showed higher ratings than Korean food/restaurants. Interestingly, the evaluation of sanitation of restaurants was opposite to that of foreigners.