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VISITORS GROUP ALLIGNMENT USING TRAVEL MOTIVATION SEGMENTATION MALAYSIAN NATIONAL ELEPHANT CONSERVATION CENTRE. Abdullah Mohd and Suziana Hassan World Ecotourism Conference 2010 8 – 10 July 2010, Kuala Lumpur. Nature tourism Malaysian’s vast natural areas and recreational activities.
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VISITORS GROUP ALLIGNMENT USING TRAVEL MOTIVATION SEGMENTATION MALAYSIAN NATIONAL ELEPHANT CONSERVATION CENTRE Abdullah Mohd and Suziana Hassan World Ecotourism Conference 2010 8 – 10 July 2010, Kuala Lumpur
Nature tourism Malaysian’s vast natural areas and recreational activities. Tourists are more aware to the well-being of nature resources and retained much of their environmental integrity the natural environment conservation, local community, and economical independence. 3 criteria of ecotourism a nature element, an educational or learning component, and a requirement of sustainability of tourism Blamey (1997, 2001).
Tourist travel motivations Alignment upon the environmental settings, recreational products and tolerance level Specifics services. People are homogenous sub-groups according to their specific attitudes, behaviours and preferences.
Study by Rosmalina & Abdullah (2005) in Taman Negara using MDA found that there are 2 main groups of ecotourists: 1. Hard ecotourists group rustic behaviour and dedicated ecotourists group 2. Soft ecotourists group casual and convenient/comfortable, large members PREVIOUS STUDIES
Due to demand to focus on ‘non-consumptive’ uses of wildlife Include less disturbance to nature that involve observation and photography, which are intended to have little or no deliberate interference with the focal species In Malaysia, Kuala Gandah National Elephant Conservation Centre (KGNECC) is the only national conservation centre for the Asian elephant and promotes wildlife tourism experience to the public closely. A large proportion of tourists in this centre might host conflicts among public and park conservation practice. However, the issues can be mitigated by understanding the travel motivation of the tourist to give attention on needs of different target groups in tourism destination REASONS OF STUDY
MAP OF PEN. MALAYSIA Faculty of Forestry
KGNECC, Lanchang, Pahang, Malaysia. KGNECC is located in the Krau Wildlife Reserve (KWR). It was established in 1923 as the Krau Game Reserve to protect wildlife species. 5.8 hectares of Krau WR reserve established in 1989. This centre is located approximately 150 km northeast of Kuala Lumpur. KGNECC is a home for several Asian elephants and some of them that are orphaned baby. THE STUDY AREA
A survey of 401 visitors 2008 at Kuala Gandah Elephant Management Centre, Pahang. The survey is to identify the various experience visitors sought include: - nature enjoyment, - educational rewarding, - wildlife tourism and - elephant conservation activities Multiple Discriminant Analysis used to segmentize and predict different motivation category of ecotourists using social-demographics and trip characteristics variables THE SURVEY
Descriptive analyses such as frequency, mean, and relative percentages was used for the socio-demographics data. In order to identify the different groupings of individuals based on motivations, Multiple Discriminant Analysis (MDA) was used to explore the discriminating strength of discriminator variables in differentiating the four nature-tourists segment. Discriminant functions were used to determine either the respondents belong to the Ecotourist, Nature Escapist, Comfortable Naturalist, or Passive Player tourists groups as identified their self-reported answers. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) with the LSD post hoc tests were used to compare the means of various continuous dependent variables for the nature tourists groups. THE ANALYSIS
The centroids for the nature-tourist group the four nature-tourist groups were found to be diffrentiated from one another The results of the segmentation analysis (MDA) showed that 64.1% of the original cases were classified, 60.8% cross-validated grouped cases correctly classified.
The findings indicated that tourists visiting KGNECC are heterogeneous and classified into four categories ecotourists, nature escapist, comfortable naturalist, and passive player. Socio-demographic backgrounds and travel characteristics are essential management information Psychographic information useful tool used to identify significant characteristics of the nature-tourist groups. Nature-tourist’ centroid showed that the tourist diffrentiate among each other based on their travel motivation, socio background factor, and travel party. The ecotourists have clear and distinct travel motivations, and possess all four motivation dimension of ecotourists and quite substantially different from the other groups’ traveler. THE FINDINGS
Ecotourists showed higher means rating as compared to other nature-tourist groups towards all of the four motivation items. Ecotourists and nature escapists do differs from each other in related to their travel motivation for relax and leisure, experience and adventure, and knowledge and learning. However, both of them showed similarity in terms of ego-enhancement motivation. In most situations, nature escapists and comfortable naturalist showed medium rates of mean motivations, meanwhile, comfortable naturalists and passive players had connection each other since statistical analyses revealed that there are no significant differences in terms of relaxation and leisure, and knowledge and learning.
Tourists visiting KGNECC are heterogeneous and could be classified into four categories, 1. ecotourists, 2. nature escapist, 3. comfortable naturalist and 4. passive player. The socio-demographic backgrounds and travel attributes are essential elements Psychographic-based analysis by linking environmental setting to specific travel motivation attributes and significant characteristics of the tourist groups presence in natural areas. TYPES OF NATURE TOURISTS
Overall, the ecotourists is ‘hard ecotourist’, while nature escapists and comfortable naturalists as ‘moderate ecotourist’ and passive players in ‘soft ecotourist’. Understanding tourists’ motivations for participating in nature tourism can ultimately help park manager effectively understand tolerance level, design recreational use, mgt. zoning and market their product lines and produce quality experience. CONCLUSIONS