UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS AND VACATION MOTIVES IN VACATIONER’S DECISION MAKING PROCESS: A CASE OF LANGKAWI ISLAND

Abstract

This study was designed to identify the relative importance vacation motives as perceived by the tourist visiting Langkawi Island, Kedah, Malaysia. In addition, this study also explored the underlying dimensions of the vacation motives and determinants factors. Questionnaires were distributed using convenient sampling utilizing 252 tourists and .were analyzed using SPSS program. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was deployed to determine whether the derived vacation motives and determinants varied among groups of socio-demographic and travelling characteristics. The findings indicated that the social-demographic factors placed a great influence on the perception of tourist towards Langkawi Island. Travel motivations and determinants were found to be significantly different in means when compared across different socio-demographic factors like age and income level. The findings also revealed the important segmentation variables in the context of consumer behavior literature where it became the contributing factors to develop appropriate marketing strategies to attract travelers.