Rural tourism destination competitiveness : the moderating impact of community support
Tourism is one of the largest economic sectors in most of the countries, and contributes to the economic growth in Malaysia. It is also a highly competitive environment, which forces tourism players to provide better visitor services in order to stay competitive. In rural tourism, a growing niche...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University Malaysia Sarawak, UNIMAS
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/9420/2/Chin%20Chee%20Hua%20ft.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/9420/ |
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| Summary: | Tourism is one of the largest economic sectors in most of the countries, and
contributes to the economic growth in Malaysia. It is also a highly competitive
environment, which forces tourism players to provide better visitor services in order
to stay competitive. In rural tourism, a growing niche in the tourism market, multiple
components of environmental constructs, such as natural resources, cultural heritage,
infrastructure, environmental quality and environmental conservation, play a crucial
role in contributing to the sustainability and competitiveness of rural tourism
destinations. Furthermore, the attitudes of local communities toward tourism
development influence its success or failure. Hence, this study examined the impact
of multi-environment components on development of tourism destination
competitiveness from a local community perspective. In addition, community
support was adopted as moderator variable to examine the relationship among the
constructs.
A total of 300 questionnaires were distributed to local communities from
three rural tourism destinations, Bario Kelabit Highland, Annah Rais Bidayuh
Longhouse, and Bako National Park, with 249 usable sets of data returned. Data
analysis was performed using SPSS Version 21.0 and SmartPLS 2.0 (M3) to assess
the developed model, based on path modelling and then bootstrapping. The findings
of this study showed that 7 direct relationship hypotheses and 3 moderated
relationships were supported. The results revealed that the multi-environmental
constructs such as environmental conservation, environmental education, tourism
infrastructure, carrying capacity, climate change, quality of environment, and natural resources have a significant positive impact on destination competitiveness from a
local community perspective. Interestingly, community support was found to
moderate the relationships between tourism infrastructure, relaxation, and climate
change towards destination competitiveness.
This study enhances both scholars’ and practitioners’ understanding of the
impact of multi-environmental constructs on destination competitiveness and the
influence of community support in linking the relationship among the constructs.
This study provides a basis for future researchers interested in the field of rural
tourism studies to further investigate the relationship among the constructs. The
findings of this study also provide valuable information to tourism stakeholders and
policy planners about the importance of environmental attributes and community
support towards the development of tourism destination competitiveness, particularly
in the context of rural tourism.
The chapters of this study are organised in the following sequence. Chapter 1
presents the introduction, Malaysian scenario, problem statement and purpose of the
study. Chapter 2 reviews the past literature on environmental components and
destination competitiveness from rural tourism context. Chapter 3 demonstrates the
research methodology, sampling, the measurement instrument to be used, the
statistical analysis, and the hypothesis of the study. Chapter 4 summarises and
presents the output from the statistical analysis. Chapter 5 discusses the findings, and
Chapter 6 presents limitations and implications of this study as well as suggestions
for future research. |
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