Gastronomy tourism is typically characterized as the pursuit of a unique experience of eating and drinking in the originality of a dish and is indigenous to a place, region, or country, covers the basic themes of local dishes. The gastronomy tourism in Ayutthaya, Thailand has high potential especially in the many activities that link to World Heritage site, therefore it requires a study of the tourist ‘perception and motivation for travel. The aim of this study consist of the following: (1) study tourist’s motivation for gastronomy tourism in Ayutthaya World Heritage and (2)Conduct a factor analysis of the tourist’s motivation for gastronomy tourism in Ayutthaya World Heritage. A quantitative research approach was conducted by collecting data from 385 questionnaires. The results found that (1) tourist’s motivation to visit Ayutthaya was to make merit and pay respect to the Buddha followed by gastronomy tourism and their search for food information from food review pages.  The gastronomy activities that tourists are interested in consisted of eating by the rivers site and visiting historical sites. Factors affecting the decision to travel to Ayutthaya for gastronomy tourism is a restaurant with good atmosphere and average food cost per meal of  1,000-1,500 baht. (2) The factor affecting motivation in gastronomy tourism in Ayutthaya World Heritage consisted of 1 latent variable and 7 observable variables. The relationship was in the range [ 0.223, 0.490] and the CFA affecting gastronomy tourism motivation showed that the gastronomy tourism product aspect was the factor affecting motivation has a maximum component weight followed by physical appearance and price, 77.30%, 75.40% and 61.70%, respectively.

Keywords: Gastronomy tourism, Food tourism, Tourist perspective, Ayutthaya