Research On Destination Image And Perceived Expectation Tourism Essay

INTRODUCTION

Back ground

Tourism can be define as the activities of people traveling from their resident country to another not more than one conservative year in charge for leisure, business, knowledge and other purpose.

In the early period of time when tourism was introduce, it was only the rich and few educated ones that love adventure travel to explore the other country culture as a tourist, so tourism then is not popular and can not generate much money for a country but as time go on tourism started to come into limelight to the extent that it serve as a major sector of income to some country.

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Tourism is growing very fast nowadays in the world to the extent that the world group it as the second largest sector of economy that generate income for country in the world. According to (WTO) world tourism organization, the sector has become a competitive sector in the world among different country of the world. Tourism business has grown to some level that some developed and developing countries like Greece depend on tourism as source of income for their country. They depend solely on it to develop the economy, create employments, and reduce poverty line of the people. All country now designs their region, cities, and state to attract tourist and tourist investor to their destination in order to compete in the tourism industries.

Apart from developing the economy of a country, tourism also give room for country culture to come into limelight. Tourists being major focus in destination have impact on the destination itself and the product in that destination. The tourist’s presence in that destination improved the awareness of the place image.

Destination image, this has to do with the tourists perceptions of products from a particular country, on their perceptions of the country’s production and marketing strengths and weaknesses.(Roth & Romeo, 1992). Tourists are meant to evaluate a destination and in this process different tourist come up with different information about that destination which is very important in improving or damaging the image of a destination. Tourist are bourn to infer about a destination image and their inference about the value of a destination serve as a quality indicator, the combination of the information or judgment lead to overall evaluation of the destination satisfaction which lead to customer loyalty(Manrai, 1998,p.594).

Furthermore, any tourist destination that was able to gain the loyalty of tourist, the destination will be at the advantage because the tourist will result to recommending that destination to other.

Successful tourism can increase the receipt of the tourist in a destination; it can also increase income, government revenue, and employment. Attracting tourist to revisit and recommend it for others is very important in the success of a destination. (Chen and Tsai,2007).

Malaysia was successful in increasing the number of tourist over the year among which is Nigeria tourist are included with the recorded number by (WTO) world tourism organization which rake Malaysia 9th position with 23 .6m among the top ten most visited country in the world. These was based on the Malaysia success in gaining the loyalty of the tourist and good destination image they have with the tourist, that is why Malaysia was able to attain this goal. Looking at the figure some years back the number is not up to this but every year the figure keep increasing, this also apply to Nigerian tourist in Malaysia, 2009 Malaysia recorded over10,000 Nigeria tourists and ever year the number keeps increasing. The research is looking at these increase in number of Nigerian tourist which is likely related to the destination image of Malaysia that has influence on perceive expectation of the Nigerian tourist, evidence from Chen& Tsai, 2007.Destination image have two major influence on tourist behavior, the first one is the power to influence destination choice decision making and the second one is the after decision making behavior of the tourist on the destination, experience, evaluation and satisfaction which lead to revisit and recommendation of the tourism destination. Good impression of the destination image brings about loyal tourist, recommendation and revisiting of the destination and it will positively develop the tourism sector. Thus, the positive experience the tourist have on the product, services, food, hotel, hospitality of the people and other will facilitate the revisit or recommendation of the destination.

Word of mouth information help tremendously in developing the image of a destination because it could produce another tourist visit to that destination or revisit.

In order words, word of mouth and recommendation by the first timer visit to a place is the most reliable source of information of a destination. However, there is no research that have look into image destination with perceive expectation, this research is going to address how destination image influence perceived expectation of Nigerian tourist and also test if destination image have influence on the increase of Nigeria tourists over the years.

1.2 Purpose of the study

The aim of this proposed study is to identify the significant image formation and it impact on Nigerian tourist’s satisfaction. Find out the relationship between destination image Nigerian tourist perceived expectation, perceive quality, tourist’s satisfaction and tourist loyalty. Using structural equation model (SEM) by empirically viewing Nigeria education tourist in Malaysia (Students) in particular as the major respondent.

1.3 Problem statement of the study

The existing literatures shows that tourism researchers have traditionally focused on issues that relate to the demand sides of the tourist motivations and few behavioral patterns mainly to discover the reasons that made tourists visit a particular destination (Chen and Tsai, 2007; Alcaniz et al., 2005). Looking at the imaginary image of tourists it calls for the need to empirically establish the actual travel experience of Nigerian tourists in Malaysia. This is sequel to various industry reports in Malaysia that have been consistently negatively painting Nigerian tourists on issues like scams, black money, kidnapping, money laundering etc (Romance scam, 2010; NOTE; (Ernest, 2009). Interestingly, despite these negative public images of Nigerian tourists in Malaysia, the country has continuously witnessed a sharp increase in Nigerian tourists to Malaysia (Sirat et al., 2010; Sirat, 2005).

Image as a dynamic concept has been argued as an effective means of comparing and analyzing historical and contemporary issues in travel literature, particularly how changes in tourist visitations have positively or negatively impacted tourism development of a society (Turel and Serenko, 2006). Arguably, tourist researchers has discovered and emphasized that the unique image of any destination has been developed in recent times through the creative use of imagery (Andriotis et al., 2008; Meng et al., 2008; Bowen and Clarke, 2002). This is because tourism suppliers have been strategically using such imagery in differentiating their products and invoking existential desires in the minds of their current and potential visitors (Sirgy et al., 2010; Gil and Ritchie, 2008). (Hudman and Johnson1994) second edition geography of travel and tourism. Hence, the uniqueness and diversity of the tourism products in the modern economy practically demand that destinations should cater for a wider array of tourist interests, by constantly repackaging their products and re-imaging their destination along tourist demand and behaviors (Chen and Tsai, 2007). Grounded in these areas of research is (Fornell et al1996). That have empirically tested and established perceived expectation, perceived quality and perceived value as the antecedents of customer satisfaction and customer complaints and customer loyalty as the consequences of customer satisfaction across industry. Similarly, Gil and Ritchie (2008), Chen and Tsai (2007) and Alcaniz et al (2005) have all separately emphasized that the ability of travel providers to efficiently match tourist perceptions with their own perceptions would lead to a more effective and productive consumer centric marketing and further confirms the relevance of image in providing the required authentic visitor experiences.

Base on the practical and theoretical gaps mentioned above, this study aims to examine Nigerian tourists’ experiences, by relating the concepts of image with the authenticity of their visits. This study proposes to breach the theoretical gap as emphasized by Chen and Tsai (2007) that difference between imagery and experience could positively or negatively impact traveler’s satisfaction.

1.4 Research objectives

This study will research on destination image and perceived expectation that lead to perceive quality, tourists’ satisfaction which resulted to customer loyalty. The research objective will be listed below;

To study the destination image, and tourist satisfaction

To study the tourist perceive expectation of the destination image which lead to tourist loyalty

To look into the relationship between destination images, perceived expectation, perceive quality and satisfaction that help in gaining the tourist loyalty.

To recommend and give suggestion on how to keep the success and improve the destination image for the tourist to keep being loyal to the destination.

1.5 Research questions

This research is going to ask these questions

What could be the perception of Nigerian tourist on Malaysia as a destination, satisfaction and loyalty of Nigerian tourist?

What is the perceived expectation of Nigerian tourist on the destination image?

What are the relationship between destination image, perceived expectation, perceive quality, satisfaction and customer loyalty?

What are the suggestions needed to continually improve the tourist satisfaction on destination?

1.6 Scope and limitation of the research

The focus of this research is limited to the tourism industry, where selected literatures, handbooks, travel books, geography of travel and tourism book, Asians statistic year book, and (WTO) world tourism organization report. Malaysia ministry of tourism staffs will be contacted to get report on Nigerian tourist in Malaysia, Nigerian students and staff of Nigerian immigration embassy will be investigated with a set of sampling technique to explore the reason why Nigerian number keeps increasing in Malaysia.

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The research was to study the pre-visit, during visiting, and post-visit perception and satisfaction of the Nigerian tourist on the destination site. According to Malaysia tourism ministry over 10,000 Nigerians are now in Malaysia, which means that the number of Nigerians tourist is increasing every year despite the bad name given to them, that means that with the level of hostility towards Nigerians tourists in Malaysia they are still satisfied or not.

Therefore, the research will focus on how Malaysia tourism industry was able to satisfied and meet up with the expectation of Nigerians tourist that make them chose Malaysia as their destination why not other Asia country e.g., India. Sample& respondent will be chosen among the student to answer the questionnaire.

1.7 Research procedure

The research procedure is the process the research study will take to solve the research question and arrived at expected result. More so, some literature of the research will be collected and review with major emphasis on image formation, tourist’s satisfaction, perceive expectation and tourist’s loyalty. Questionnaire will be design base on the construct from the theory and according to the previous study.