The purposes of this research were to study the current tutorial business environment and demographic characteristics of learners in Lampang; analyze Porter’s generic competitive strategies used by small tutorial school business and preferred by learners; provide competitive advantage guidance to small tutorial school business in Lampang. A mixed method research approach was selected and conducted. First, a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews was conducted with five entrepreneurs selected through purposive sampling. Second, a survey instrument for quantitative research using a structured questionnaire was distributed to 400 respondents. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (percentage, mean, and standard deviation) and One-way ANOVA, t-tests were used for testing hypothesis. The significant findings revealed that most of the entrepreneurs did not use any particular strategy but rather a mix of different strategies. It was found that differentiation strategy is the most preferred strategy
which was confirmed by respondents with the highest mean rating of 4.22; results revealed that learners prioritized the providers who listen to their feedback. Cost Leadership Strategy with mean rating of 4.17 was the second most preferred. Focus Strategy with mean rating of 4.11 was the least preferred strategy; results revealed that learners weighted Cost Focus on fair prices along with high-quality courses and services. Based on the hypothesis testing it was found that learners with different demographic characteristics with the exception of gender yielded a significant difference on all generic competitive preferences. It was found to be consistent with the current strategies used by tutorial businesses at a statistically significant level below 0.01.