***** DUPLICATE COPY WITH ID NO. 48626 ***** An investigation into the psychographics of visitors to homestay Malaysia / Dr. Nor'ain Othman and Salamiah A. Jamal

Homestay villages are becoming prominent destinations in the country for increasingly popular village life discoveries and cultural activities of community-based
leisure travel and tourism, particularly the homestay tourism (Tourism Malaysia, 2008). One of the challenges for homestay management identified by previous researchers was the issue of implementing viable homestay marketing and planning programmes (Hamid & Ramanchandram, 2002; Hamzah, 2004; Kayat, 2009) that could eventually create interest and increase the number of visitations among the locals and foreign visitors. It is believed that an understanding of the homestay visitors is imperative for the achievement of this end, and thus the identification of the segment of homestay visitors is relevant.