2nd International Conference
on Management, Hospitality & Tourism, and Accounting
Jakarta, 12 – 13 November 2010
Tourist Preference for Tourism
Destinations Information Sources
(Tourist’s Preference on Ratings Information Sources affected by
Tourists’ shared Characteristic to Jakarta’s Tourism Destinations)
Rudy Aryanto
Bina Nusantara University
ABSTRACT
Consumer’s
search for specific information related to a product or a service is critical
step in their purchase decision making process, and the available information
sources can stimuli and potentially affect the information search of tourist purchase
decision to a tourism destination. Meanwhile the characteristics of guest’s
influence the manner in which they search for, rate, and use information about
tourism destination related product or services. The purpose of this research is to determine information
source importance ratings considering the influence of tourist characteristic
to Jakarta tourism destinations.
INTRODUCTION
Understanding tourist
decision to purchase specific destination products or services is becoming
increasingly important to destination marketing management, and the consumer
decision making has the following stages: need recognition, search for
information, pre purchase alternative evaluation, purchase, consumption, post
purchase alternative evaluation, and divestment (Blackweel. 2005). One of the major factors influencing consumer
decisions to purchase a product of service is information sources. Information search or information seeking is
the process of consulting various sources before making a purchasing decision,
consumer recognize the need for more knowledge, which activates the decision to
search for information about alternatives.
Awareness of a particular product or service and resulting purchase
decisions largely depend on the information consumer are able to gather and the
credibility of such information. The
search process may be spontaneous and lived of occur over a longer period of
time and involve intense exploration of the product or service. Information may be sought internally from an
individual’s memory, and searches may also be conducted externally, which
involves an active process in that information must be sought out. Additionally several information sources may
be used.
Jakarta as the
Indonesia capital is a metropolitan and in the 480th years old has
been the gate of Indonesia and the centre of distribution to other tourist
destination. The Jakarta tourism
destinations develop according to the increase of tourism activity. The tourism destinations in this city have
dominated to provide scenic area, leisure, coastal, marine, mountain, shopping
and historical attraction. Jakarta get more large tourists than the other city’s
tourism destinations in Indonesia.
RELATED STUDIES & THEORIES
Past studies have found that consumers differ in their
like hood to seek out product knowledge, ranging from intensive seekers to
those that engage in very limited searches.
Consumers also differ in the number of sources consulted for product or
service information and the importance placed on the sources; frequently
consumers seek information from several sources prior to making a purchase
decision. Numerous factors may influence
a consumer’s information seeking behavior.
Past information seeking research based on information search theory has
found several general relationships between consumer characteristics and search
behavior. In past studies define Information search is one of the first steps
of the vacation decision-making process. It is necessary for choosing a destination
and for on-site decisions such as selecting accommodations, transportation,
activities, and tours (Dogan and Umbreit. 2004). Information search performance
(i.e., locating relevant information to resolve issues) and variables affecting
search performance are important because information located during the search
process can affect decision quality for better or worse of destinations
(Barrick and Spilker. 2003). The one importance of information search study is a
good understanding of tourists' perceived importance of destination presumably
enables destination marketers to entice potential customers (Chen. 2001). In
tourism consumer behaviour discipline, information search can be either
internal or external. Internal search is based on the retrieval of knowledge
from memory, while the other consists of collecting information from the
marketplace (Dogan and McCleary. 2003).
Internal Search
Searching for services
information come from memory. Internal
search is a critical aspect of the judgment and decision making process, almost
all decision making involves some from memory processing. Each consumer has stored in memory a variety
of information, feelings, and past experiences that can be recalled in making a
decision. Consumer researchers have been
very interested in determining (1) the extent of the search, (2) the nature of
the search, and (3) the process by which information, feelings, and experiences
arc recalled to enter into the choice process.
Internal search is knowledge stored in long term memory. Whether
consumers rely solely on internal search will heavily depend on the adequacy or
quality of their existing knowledge.
First time buyers may need to undertake external search. Experienced
buyers may find their knowledge to be inadequate for product categories
characterized by large inter purchase times (the amount of time between
purchase occasions) during which there are significant product changes in term
of prices, features, and new brands and stores.
Even if product changes have been minimal, internal search is hindered
by large inter purchase times due to problems of forgetting. May nor existing
knowledge be sufficient when the present. Consumption problem is perceived to
be different from those in the past. Internal search consisted of :
Experiences and Previous Visits: Previous visitation or experience to a destination is one of the most
commonly examined factors likely to influence tourists’ prior knowledge of the
destination and thus their information search behaviour and decision making
process. There are four main sources of information stored in memory;
prior purchase experiences, previous low involvement learning, previous
learning about the environment (latent learning) and the degree to which one
uses internal (one’s own memory) as opposed to external (packages or lists)
memory, all of this stored information can of course be used by consumers to
generate new information by deduction or inference.
Familiarity: Consumers’ familiarity with a product
category is measured as a continuous variable that reflects their direct and
indirect knowledge of a product category (Dogan and McCleary. 2003)
Expertise: Some individuals within the family may have more
influence on decision making regardless of family type or gender role
preference (Tinson et.al. 2008).
Image Analysis: Each
brand within the awareness set is Rely to have a set of associations between
itself and other bits and pieces of information that are stored in memory. The first step, on an image analysis is to
identify the particular associations that define a brand’s image, the second
step is to assess the strength of brands associations, Companies may find it
useful to probe for a deeper understanding of what a brands associations
represent in the consumer’s psyche as part of an image analysis. Generally
tourist choose a destination considerate on four basics criteria: (1)
facilities offered, (2) attraction, (3) price, (4) quality of amenities.
From destination marketers’ perspective, the
destination image plays a pivotal role in establishing destination marketing
strategy. Image, as one of the most influential factors affecting tourist
perception and consequent behaviour, is a concoction of various feelings about,
attitudes toward, and ground for an overall evaluation of an object (Gyehee and
Choong. 2009)
Involvement: Generally,
there is strong support for the relationship between involvement and search
behaviour. Literature suggests that, when making decisions, highly involved
individuals will go through an extended problem solving process: recognizing
the problem, actively searching for information, evaluating the alternatives,
and making the purchase decision.
Learning: Learning
can be defined as the process by which experience leads to changes in
knowledge, attitudes, and/or behaviour. Learning has been examined under two
major approaches: cognitive and behaviorist.
Expertise: Destination
expertise can be defined as exposure to related advertisement, information
search, interactions with travel agents and other consultants, selection and
decision-making, and previous experiences. (Dogan and McCleary. 2003).
Product and Location: an example of how information about the
strength of association between a brand and specific attributes could be
collected and used for simplicity, example will focus on four specific
attributes, they are: product/service, location, price and friendship of
personnel.
Price knowledge: is aspect of product knowledge that deserves to be
singled out is that involving product prices.
An examination of what consumers know about an absolute price and a
relative price, can provide important information for guiding marketing
actions. Marketing executives’ pricing
decisions may depend on their perceptions of how well informed consumers are
about prices.
Consumer satisfaction: The degree of satisfaction with prior
purchase “I also determine the consumer’s reliance on internal search. If the
consumers has been satisfied with the result of previous buying action,
internal search may suffice. In
assessing the key dimensions of quality for a hotel, the servqual determinants are a useful starting point: reliability,
communication, credibility, security, competence, courtesy, understanding,
access.
External search
Information searching from the environment. Sometimes
a consumer’s decision can be based entirely on information recalled from
memory. Other times, Tourism is an information intensive industry whose
organizations rely on the communication with tourists through various channels
to market their products and build customer relationships (Bing and Fesenmaier.
2006), information is missing or there is uncertainty surrounding the
recalled information when this occurs, consumers can acquire additional
information from outside sources through an external search. Outside sources include dealers, trusted
friends or relatives, published sources (magazines, pamphlets, or books),
advertisements, or package itself.
Consumers can collect information on what brands are available as well
as information on the attributes and benefits associated with those that are in
the consideration set (Hoyer and MacInnis. 2007). Basically, external
in nature, sources of information which previously have been organized into
four basic categories: (1) personal (e.g., word-of-mouth advice from friends
and relatives), (2) marketer-dominated (e.g., advertisements in print and
electronic media), (3) neutral (e.g., third-party sources such as travel agents
and travel guides), and (4) experiential sources—direct contacts with retailer
(money and Crotts. 2003). In this study we considered two types of information
sources: non-media (institutional and commercial brochures, travel agents and
internet) and mass media information sources (advertising and reports in
broadcast media). (Claudia. 2007). External search consisted of :
Word-of-Mouth: Marketers
are especially interested in a form of influence called word-of-mouth (WOM). WOM
is the process whereby consumers who have experienced a product or service pass
on their views, both positive and negative, about the product or service to
other people (Swarbooke and Horner. 2007). WOM refers to information about
products or services communicated verbally. Consider the number of consumer
behavior that are likely to be affected by WOM. WOM pervasive with another
person; it is also more pervasive than written information.
Advertising and Media: We
can define advertising as any paid from of non personal presentation and
promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor. Advertising is
mass, paid communication which is used to used transmit information, develop
attitudes and induce some from of response by providing information to
potential customers, by trying to modify their desires and supplying reasons
why they should pref6r that particular company’s services.
Billboard/Highway sign: This is useful for reminder copy and can
support other media activities the effect of an advertisement on television can
be prolonged if recipients are exposed to a reminder poster on their way to
work the following day, if strategically placed, the posters can appeal to
segmented audiences.
Radio: radio advertising has often been seen as the poor relation
of television advertising, appealing only to the sense of sound. The threshold
cost of advertising is much lower than for television, reflecting much more
local segmentation of radio audiences and the lower production costs of radio
adverts.
Television: This is an expensive but very powerful medium. Although
it tends to be used mainly for the long term task of creating brand awareness,
it can also create a rapid sales response the very fact that a message has been
seen on television can give credibility to the message source, and many smaller
service companies add the phrase as seen on TV to give additional credibility
to their other media communications. The
power of the television medium is enhanced by its ability to appeal to both the
senses of sight and sound and to use movement and color to develop a sales
message.
Newspapers: Daily newspapers tend to have a high degree of reader
loyalty reflecting the fact that each national title is targeted to specific
segments of the population. This loyalty
can lead to the printed message being perceived as having a high level of credibility
on the part of the reader. Therefore,
daily papers may be useful for prestige and reminder advertising. They can be
used for creating general awareness of a product of a brand as well as
providing detailed product information.
Magazines: Advertising in magazines may at first seem relatively
expensive compared to newspapers, they represent good value to advertisers in
terms of the large number of readers per copy and highly segmented nature of
their audience.
Brochure/Folders and Guidebooks/Catalogues: Direct marketing
normally involves direct response to media such as advertisements, catalogues,
and direct mail (brochures). Direct marketing offers the possibility of
selecting specific target markets through the use of specialized mailing lists,
data bases, or media. This permits
customized appeals and creative strategy based on the lifestyles and needs of
the target market segments. Direct
marketers are also heavy users of predictive modeling, mailing list
enhancement, life time value analysis, and advanced forms of cross-selling or
up selling. They arc heavy users of controlled testing and experimentation.
Various product rating agencies have risen to the forefront in recent years. The most widely known being consumers’ union,
which publishes consumer report. Several
manufactures have found, frequently to their dismay, that rating by such
agencies have a potent effect, especially the if rating are negative.
The Moderating Tourist Characteristics
In term of tourist’s shared
characteristics, past research looked at how individual tourists make their
purchasing decisions. It is now time to look at ways in which academic and
marketers have sought to group tourists together on the basis of shared
characteristics. This has resulted in typologies of tourists and methods of
segmentation.
The typologies of tourist:
Explorers are small group who almost as anthropologists
Elite tourists are experienced frequent travelers who like
expansive tailor-made tours
Off-beat tourist aims to get away from other tourists
Unusual tourist make
side trips from organized tours to experience local culture
Incipient mass tourist travel to established destinations where
tourism is not yet totally dominant
Mass tourists expect the same things they are used to at home
Charter tourist have little or no interest in the destination
itself providing that the holiday gives them the entertainment and standards of
food and accommodations they expect.
Segmentation: There are five
classics ways of segmenting markets, in other words, the consumers population
can be subdivided on the basis of four different criteria, into groups which
share similar characteristics as buyers.
Demographic, e.g. age, sex, race, stage in the family life cycle
Geographical, e.g. where the tourist lives
Psychographical, e.g. th personality and lifestyle of the tourist
Behaviouristic, that is, the relationship of the tourist to the
product, e.g. the benefits they expect to receive form the purchase and whether
or not they are fist-time or regular purchasers of the products. (Swarbooke and
Horner. 2007)
Tourist Demographic Characteristic: Individual demographic characteristics may influence information
seeking behavior research in consumer behavior has generally found that people
of higher income and education search more for product/service information. Age tends to be inversely related to amount
of search, while the relationship between search behavior and other demographic
characteristics, such as social class and occupation, tends to depend on the
product/service being investigated.
Certain demographic characteristics of travelers have been linked to
information search behavior. Studies
have found that college educated individuals were more likely to use destination
specific literature, and people of higher socio-economic class frequently used
travel agents as information sources. The older people were more likely to use
a travel agent than younger people.
Older people have also been reported to heavily rely on information from
friends and family..
Social Psychological Factors:
Perceived benefits of information search will influence search behavior.
Consumers have had knowledge of the product will usually engage in limited
search activity perceiving that the benefits of additional information search
are minimal. Studies of the relationship
between experience and information search have had mixed results, however likely
the relationship is mitigated by many factors, such as product/service
satisfaction. Generally, however, it
seems that consumers with more knowledge of a product or service engage in different
types of information search than those with limited knowledge, and frequently
less information seeking behavior will occur.
Such individuals will rely more heavily on internal information
search. Two tourism studies related to
this idea found that: (1) information seeking for visit to a hotel was related
to previous visitation, with professional sources used more by first-time
visitors; and (2) information seeking was greater with unknown
destination. Finally, motives for
visitation can influence information seeking, Motivation is a state of need
that “pushes” a person toward actions that may bring to the need for optimal
arousal and I largely effected by social factors.
STUDY PURPOSE AND HYPOTHESES
Marketing
managers of a tourism destination must have knowledge of the importance guests
place on various information sources because of its influence on purchase on
purchase decisions. The effectiveness of information varies with the nature of
the product/service and the characteristics of the people interested in consuming
the product/service. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relative
importance tourists to tourism destinations placed on various information
sources. Additionally, this study will
determine the relation sources.
Additionally, this study will determine the relationship between guest
characteristic and information source importance ratings. It is hypothesized
that:
1.
Word-of-mouth will be rated as the most important
external information source influencing guests’ decision to visit an hotel.
2.
Courtesy will be rated as the most important internal
information source influencing guests’ decision to visit an hotel.
3.
Differences in importance ratings of information
sources “ill be related to tourist demographic and guest motives to visitation
4.
If memory scan reveals sufficient information to
provide. A satisfactory course of action, external search is unnecessary. When
internal search proves inadequate, the consumer may decide to collect
additional information from environment.
METHODS
Procedures and Sample
Data were collected from tourist
to Jakarta tourism destination who visit to that destination more than one
time. From June 2009 through March 2010. The Jakarta’s tourism destination sample are
:
• Kepulauan
Seribu : Coastal and Marine Tourism Attraction
• TN
Gunung Gede Pangrango : Mountain Tourism
• Taman
Impian Jaya Ancol : Leisure Area
• Kawasan
Kota Tua : Historical Tourism
On the days of data collection,
research assistants approach every tourist and asked his or her cooperation in
the study. The sampling interval was pre-determined based on a three years
history of visit rates. If the tourist agreed to participate in the study, the
research assistant asked a set of questions, The tourist then completed a set
of self administered questions. The
“interview” technique was utilized to establish rapport and therefore increase
response rate for the entire study, we can predict 600 people agreed to
participate. Of those 600 people, 500 respondents
will valid and become study data.
Variables
To determine the importance of
various information sources. Respondents were asked to respond to the query
“how important were the following sources of information influence you to visit
the Jakarta tourism destinations?” using a five point scale, where I=not
important/influence and 5 = extremely important/influence (Zikmund. 2002). Thirteen sources of internal information were
listed: past experience/familiarity, facilities offered: price, attraction,
reliability, responsiveness, communication, credibility, security, competence,
courtesy, understanding, and access. And
eight sources of external information were listed: word-of-mouth, billboard or
highway sign, radio or program, TV commercial or appearance, newspaper ad or
article, magazine ad or story, brochure or folder, guidebook or catalogue.
These twenty one source of information were used as independent variables in
later analyses.
DATA ANALYSIS
The first type
of data analysis employee was multivariate analysis of variance (One Way ANOVA)
and factor Analysis. MANOVA is used when
there are multiple dependent variables that are interval or ratio-scaled
variables. There may be one or more
nominally scaled independent variables.
The MANOVA technique was originally developed to analyze the effects of
experimental treatments on a set of two or more dependent variables, but can
also be used in non experimental studies which employ random selection. MANOVA is analogous to the more commonly used
ANOVA in multivariate analysis. However,
in situations when dependent variables is being investigated, and the dependent
variables are conceptualized as measuring aspects of a single underlying
variable, the multivariate test is more appropriate. Using multivariate statistics to measure
multivariate data increases the chance of finding significant results where
none exit (type 1 error). Additionally,
the like hood of making a type 1 error increase as the number of dependent
variables increases.
The one way
analysis of variance (One-Way ANOVA) is the appropriate statistical tool. This bivariate statistical technique is
referred to as “one-way” because there is only one independent variable (even
though there may be several levels of that variable). The F-test is procedure for comparing one
sample variance to another sample variance.
In the analysis of variance situation, the basic consideration for the F
test is to identify the total variance.
There will be two forms of variation: (1) variation of scores due to
random error or within group variation due to individual differences, and (2)
systematic variation of scores between the groups due to the manipulation of an
independent variable. Thus we can
partition total variance into within group variance and between group
variance. The larger the ration of
variance between groups to variance within group, the greater the value of F.
If the F value is large, it is likely that the results are statistically
significant.
The Factor
Analysis is procedure that takes a large number of variables or objects and
searches to see whether they have a small number of factors in common which
account for their inter correlation. The factor Analysis has a number of
possible applications in marketing research.
These include data reduction, structure identification, scale, and data
transformation. There are essential three steps in a factor Analysis
solution. The first is to develop a set
of correlations between all combinations of the variables of interest. Since we are using correlations, we must then
be second step is to extract a set of initial factors from the correlation
matrix developed in the first step. The
third step is to “rotate” the initial factors to find a final solution.
Second type of data analysis is SEM (structural
equation modeling), it has become an established component of the methodological repertoire
of marketing and consumer behavior researchers. There are at least two features
that make SEM an attractive candidate for purposes of data analysis. First, SEM
allows the researcher to take into account explicitly the inherent fallibility
of behavioural science data and to assess and correct for measure unreliability
provided multiple indicators of each construct are available. Second, SEM makes
it possible to investigate in a straightforward fashion comprehensive
theoretical frameworks in which the effects of constructs are propagated across
multiple layers of variables via direct, indirect, or bi-directional paths of
influence. These advantages, coupled with the development of ever more
sophisticated, yet surprisingly user-friendly computer programs to estimate and
test such models, make it rather likely that SEM will enjoy widespread use in
future research. (Baumgartner and
Homburg. 1996). Apart from its use in measurement analysis, SEM is
usually employed in studies investigating linear structural relations between
constructs based on cross-sectional data. Ideally, each construct is measured
by multiple indicators so that measurement error can be taken into account.
However, in cases where only a single indicator of a construct is available, SEM
still provides several benefits. For example, if the researcher has some idea
about the extent of measurement error in an observed variable based on earlier
work or other studies, this information can be incorporated into the model by
fixing the error variance to a non-zero value. If no information about
measurement error is available, the researcher can still conduct sensitivity
analyses to assess the robustness of parameter estimates to measure
unreliability. (Steenkamp and Baumgartner. 2000). As on Causal Modelling is
generally credited with bringing the technique to the attention of a wide
audience of marketing and consumer
behaviour researchers, and articles in which structural equation modelling is
used for data analysis now appear routinely in most leading marketing and
consumer behaviour journals. The popularity of the methodology is apparent from
the recent introduction of the version of LISREL.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The ratings to information
sources (internal and external information sources) for tourism destination
product or services potentially affect the tourists information search and
purchase decision, and the tourists characteristics will influence this ratings
of information search.
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