IDENTIFYING DESTINATION ATTRACTIVENESS OF KUALA TERENGGANU PERCEIVED BY DOMESTIC TOURIST

Abstract

The mission of Terengganu Tourism Department is to attract and increase tourists so that they will spend on the increased attractiveness and delivery of high-quality services, create an unforgettable experience, and make Terengganu a great destination. However, the last statistics proved that Terengganu is among the states that received a small number of domestic tourists, including tourism receipts, as compared to other states. Terengganu was ranked in the ninth place of visited domestic tourists and receipts in 2018. Therefore, this study aims to identify the underlying factors of destination attractiveness of Kuala Terengganu: assuring that the advertising strategies will use the best strategy which has been formulated to attract the groups of domestics’ tourists to visit Kuala Terengganu. Data collection has been carried out using a Google Forms online questionnaire. A total of 90 respondents who had experience visiting Kuala Terengganu were involved in this study. The method of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) divided destination attractiveness construct into three factors namely 1) recreation, leisure and amenities; 2) accessible and; 3) attractions. The findings of this study are very useful to marketing practitioners in designing promotional campaigns of destination attractiveness towards Kuala Terengganu.