The present study is perhaps the first explorative study exclusively focused on the reasons for internationalization of domestic hotel chains in Thailand. It is also one of a few recent attempts (Panvisavas & Taylor, 2006; Wee, 2007) to present why the Thai hotel chains seek to deliver their prod- ucts and services beyond the traditional boundaries of domestic markets and what the factors affecting their decisions are. Interestingly, the results of this study reveal that, the reasons for internationalization that emerged as being the most practiced by the three Thai hotel chains are spreading risk; increasing profit by acquiring the opportunity of investment; learning new knowledge from overseas markets; building worldwide brand recog- nition and creating a marketing network; Thai legal restrictions on hotel operations; a good relationship with the host country; and maintaining the relationship between Thailand and neighboring countries. The first four rea- sons did not differ from those identified in the existing literature, but the last three reasons could not be sufficiently explained by the existing lit- erature. This implies that not only those reasons identified in the existing