Tourist's perceptions on Kelantan tourism attributes / Marziana Madah Marzuki … [et al.]

The World Travel and Tourism Council claimed that tourism was the world's largest industry in 1991 (World Travel and Tourism Council, 1991). The past few years have shown a steady increase in the volume of international travel, and along with this growth in travel, the number of tourism destination choices has also increased as many policy­makers have recognized the value of tourism to the economies of their regions. In realizing the fact that tourism industry contributes to the economic development of a country, many researches have been done in order to identify the destination images that will contribute to the creation of tourism products and services. This research studies the perceptions of the tourist in Kelantan in identifying the tourism product in Kelantan and hence, to propose potential strategies that can be used by the tourism agencies and
Kelantan state government for the development of tourism in Kelantan. This research involved a review of the relevant destination image literatures to develop a list of attributes that theoretically measure destination image. It also measures tourists' perception on Kelantan tourism attributes. For the purpose of this study questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 100 tourists visiting Kelantan during the month of
October to December 2006. Analysis were undertaken to study the relationship between variables and it was found that only few variables were significant. An analysis of open ended question shows that tourists view Kelantan as Islamic state with cultural values
being the main attraction.