Tourists’ Perspective on Ecotourism Destination Competitiveness: The Role of Tangible Components

Ching, Jia Lie and Lo, May Chiun and Mohamad Kadim, Suaidi and Abang Azlan, Mohamad and Chin, Chee Hua (2019) Tourists’ Perspective on Ecotourism Destination Competitiveness: The Role of Tangible Components. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9 (11). pp. 335-357. ISSN 2222-6990

[img] PDF
Tourists’ Perspective on Ecotourism Destination.pdf

Download (821kB)
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v9-i11/6552

Abstract

In this evolving digitalized ecosphere, ecotourism is one of the important catalysts in tourism and the government has been looking forward to the opportunities in promoting the uniqueness of ecotourism attraction through Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign. Moreover, the development of ecotourism destination should be implemented in a way that maximizes destination competitiveness. In our study, we examine the relationship between the tangible components of ecotourism destination competitiveness, namely, accessibility accommodation, cultural heritage, entertainment, infrastructure, natural resources, range of activities, and special events offered with ecotourism destination competitiveness, from the demand side point of view. A total of 225 respondents comprising tourists both international and domestic tourists visited Gunung Gading National Park in Sarawak, Malaysia took part voluntarily in this study. To assess the developed model, WarpPLS (version 6.0) was applied based on path modelling and then bootstrapping to generate the standard error of the estimate and p-values. Interestingly, the findings suggested that accessibility, natural resources, infrastructure and range of activities had a significant positive impact on ecotourism destination competitiveness, whereas no significant impact found among accommodation, cultural heritage, entertainment, and special events. Implications of these findings were further discussed.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Ecotourism, Destination Competitiveness, Tangible Aspects, National Park, Malaysia, unimas, university, universiti, Borneo, Sarawak, Kuching, Samarahan, ipta, education, research, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Divisions: Academic Faculties, Institutes and Centres > Faculty of Economics and Business
Faculties, Institutes, Centres > Faculty of Economics and Business
Depositing User: Mohamad
Date Deposited: 15 Jul 2020 02:32
Last Modified: 14 Aug 2020 02:20
URI: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/30421

Actions (For repository members only: login required)

View Item View Item