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Trang 1FACTORS AFFECTING THE TOURISTS’ SATISFACTION
AT TRADITIONAL TRADE VILLAGE TOURIST PLACE IN BAY NUI,
AN GIANG PROVINCE
Hua Ngoc Thuy Trang1, Nguyen Huu Dang1
1 Can Tho University
Information:
Received: 21/08/2018
Accepted: 01/01/2019
Published: 11/2019
Keywords:
Traditional trade village,
Tourist destination, Tourists’
satisfaction
ABSTRACT
This study aims to determine factors that affect tourist satisfaction at traditional trade village tourist place in Bay Nui, An Giang province by using both quantitative and qualitative research methods The researcher conducted a survey of 285 interviewees; including tourists who visited traditional trade village tourist locations and other tourist attractions as well
as tourists who stayed at hotels and guesthouses the surrounding Bay Nui’s area Based on the result of the study, the author recommended some specific solutions to enhance tourists’ satisfaction at traditional trade villages at Bay Nui, An Giang province
1 RATIONALE OF THE RESEARCH
An Giang tourism currently attracts more than 6
million tourists annually According to the
statistics, in 2017 An Giang province welcomed
around 7.3 million domestic and international
tourists and increase 12 percent and 7 percent
compared to the previous year and the plan 2017
respectively According to the report, the number
of in-house tourists and travelers was estimated to
reach 6 hundred thousand arrivals, reaching 100
percent of the year plan, especially the
international arrivals was estimated at over 75
thousand, 50 percent compared to the same period
last year Tourism revenue was around VND
3,700 billion, up 16 percent and 9 percent higher
than the year plan (Source: An Giang Provincial
People's Committee, 2017) Bay Nui is one of the
key tourist destinations of An Giang province
This is also known as That Son, including seven
discontinuous mountains, located between Tri Ton and Tinh Bien districts of An Giang province Nowadays, Bay Nui has become an attractive tourist destination with majestic mountains and a cool climate all year round People here are so proud of their regional culture and eager to reach the harmony between tradition and modernity
Many countries around the world have built traditional trade village brands and preserved their traditional cultural values In Japan, traditional trades have been maintained and operated At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Japan opened 867 traditional trades China has also promoted rural industrialization, paying attention
to development through its factory enterprises The Korean Government has considered traditional trade village development as an important strategy in the country’s development through creating more jobs for farmers In Vietnam, along with the country's economic
Trang 2development, the number of traditional trade
villages has over 2 thousand traditional villages
Particularly, there are some notable traditional
trade villages in Bay Nui such as Khmer Van
Giao brocade weaving village (Tinh Bien), Palm
sugar cooking village (Tinh Bien, Tri Ton) and
Chau Lang pottery village (Tri Ton) These
villages are livelihood of more than 90 thousand
Khmer people living in Tri Ton and Tinh Bien,
accounting for about 4 percent of the An Giang’s
population (Source: Statistical Yearbook of Tri
Ton and Tinh Bien districts, An Giang province,
2015) The development of trade villages has
contributed to rural economic restructuring;
created more jobs and made more valuable items
However, traditional trade villages are facing
many difficulties such as management tunover,
operation and development that are not
commensurate with the potential Despite
welcoming many tourists each year, the
infrastructure, human resources, quality of
tourism products have not satisfied the demand of
tourists Some traditional trades with cultural
values - a hundred-year history of the Khmer
people in Bay Nui is gradually disappearing
Within the desire to contribute to discover factors
affecting the tourists’ satisfaction at traditional
trade village in Bay Nui, contributing to support
local managers to have appropriate policies to
develop the local tourism, improving the quality
of services for tourists as well as, contributing to
the sustainable economic development, ensuring
the live and job of people in trade villages and
maintaining the traditional features, the subject:
“Factors affecting the tourists’ satisfaction at
traditional trade village tourist place in Bay Nui,
An Giang province” has been selected for
research in both theory and practice
2 THEORETICAL BASIS AND
RESEARCH MODEL
2.1 Theoretical basis
Traditional trade village tourism is a form of
cultural tourism, through which visitors have
access to tangible and intangible cultural values closely related to a traditional trade village The traditional village is both a typical tourist product when the village has the ability to attract visitors and is an additional tourism product when creating souvenir items for tourists
Customer satisfaction is their reaction to the perceived difference between known experience and expectation (Parasuraman et al., 1988) Customer’ satisfaction is their emotional response
to service providers on the basis of comparing the difference between what they have received and previous expectations The expectations of customers are formed from the shopping experience, friends, colleagues and the information of sellers and competitors In simple terms, customer’ satisfaction is what the customer feels about the service provider after using the service Tourists’ satisfaction is a function of the satisfaction level of two factors: functional factors (goods, products) and service factors of suppliers Researching customer’ satisfaction with these two types will help service organizations find the most effective customer service strategy, while helping businesses attract and maintain customers, thereby improving the competitiveness of enterprises and localities (Luu Thanh Duc Hai et al., 2011) Besides, tourists’ satisfaction is considered to be the overall satisfaction with the destination, so it
is affected by various aspects of the trip, such as transportation, activities provided, etc Travel destination satisfaction affects tourists’ satisfaction with the service or organization of the trip (Nina K Prebensen, 2004)
There are many research topics about the factors that affect tourist satisfaction Luu Thanh Duc Hai
et al (2011) studied factors affecting tourists' satisfaction when traveling to Kien Giang using the service quality analysis model and testing the scale of satisfaction level of service quality with six variables: (1) Tourism landscape, (2) Infrastructure, (3) Transportation, (4) Tour guides, (5) Accommodation facilities and (6) Prices The result of the factor analysis shows that there are
Trang 3five components that have a causal relationship
with the tourists' satisfaction Nguyen Trong Nhan
et al (2014) studied the satisfaction level of
international visitors for floating market tourism
in Can Tho city and surrounding areas by eight
criteria: (1) Natural environment (3) measurement
variables, (2) Infrastructure (4) measurement
variables), (3) Response and safety assurance of
vehicles (6) measurement variables), (4) Catering,
sightseeing, shopping, entertainment (4)
measurement variables), (5) Accommodation
facilities (7) measurement variables), (6) Security
and Safety (3) measurement variables), (7) Tour
guides (6) measurement variables) and (8) Prices
of services (5) measurement variables After
analysis, identify two factors affecting tourist
satisfaction: factor one is "Environment and
Infrastructure" and factor two is "Service and
Price" Suthathip Suanmali (2014) uses the
SERVPERF model to measure tourist satisfaction
The result shows that there are 5 factors that
influence the satisfaction of tourists in Chiang
Mai, Thailand: Hospitality, Attraction, Cost,
Environmental Factors and Infrastructure
2.2 Hypothesis and research model
Based on the reference of criteria used to measure
tourists’ satisfaction from previous studies and
adding evaluation content to the research topic,
the questionnaire was developed built on a 5-level
Likert scale The study proposed eight
hypotheses, with 31 observed variables affecting
tourists’ satisfaction
The hypotheses in the research model
Parasuraman (1988) points out the gap between
perceptions and expectations of customers when
using services based on 5 factors such as:
Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy,
and Tangible value Each criteria is used twice:
first to determine customer expectations about the
service they want to use and the second time to
measure customer perception of the performance
of products and services provided by the supplier
Through the model, it is possible to identify the
gap between expectations and reality; reality is customer’ satisfaction about the quality of the service Then, the author has inherited and hypothesized H1, H2
Hypothesis H1: Feeling of Reliability affects the same dimension with tourist satisfaction
Hypothesis H2: Feeling of Responsiveness affects the same dimension with tourists’ satisfaction
Luu Thanh Duc Hai et Al (2011) studied factors affecting tourist satisfaction when traveling to Kien Giang using the service quality analysis model and testing the scale of satisfaction about the quality level of service The result shows that the tour guide attitude has the strongest impact on the tourists’ satisfaction, next is the form of the tour guide A tour guide is a representative of a tourist destination to introduce tourists to the culture, history and special features of the destination Therefore, the professional service capacity of the tour guide is an important factor affecting the tourists’ satisfaction The next hypothesis of the study is:
Hypothesis H3: Feeling of Service capacity affects the same dimension with tourist satisfaction
Landscape, natural environment is one of the factors directly affecting the ability to attract tourists Phan Thi Dang (2015) points out the factors that attract tourists when choosing an ecotourism are natural scenery and cool climate suitable for camping Therefore, beautiful landscape and fresh air will affect the tourists’ satisfaction, hypothesis H4 is stated as following:
Hypothesis H4: Feeling of Natural environment affects the same dimension with tourist satisfaction
Infrastructure and technical facilities of tourism include: Network and transport means, Communication network, electricity and material facilities Besides, the tourists’ satisfaction is considered the overall satisfaction with the destination, so it is affected by various aspects of the trip including roads, vehicles, facilities quality
Trang 4of the destination, etc The satisfaction of the
tourist destination affects the tourist satisfaction
with the service of the trip (Nina K Prebensen,
2004) From there, the author hypothesized H5:
Hypothesis H5: Feeling of Infrastructure affects
the same dimension with tourist satisfaction
Mano and Oliver (1993) suggest that tourist
satisfaction is based on a variety of factors,
including a destination, market location, quality of
service, visitor expectations and experience of
each traveler during their stay Satisfaction is the
comparison of expectations with customer
experiences Satisfaction with products and
services, which is understood as customer’
satisfaction during transaction with the business,
the Travel Products that destination bring to
tourists are compared with what they expect
before traveling The next hypothesis of the study
is:
Hypothesis H6: Feeling of Travel Products affects
the same dimension with tourist satisfaction
Suthathip Suanmali (2014) points out that Cost is
one of the factors affecting tourists’ satisfaction in
Chiang Mai, Thailand Costs include expenses for accommodation, meals, transportation and souvenirs Perceptions of prices will affect customer’ satisfaction Hypothesis H7 is stated as following:
Hypothesis H7: Feeling of Price affects the same dimension with tourist satisfaction
A survey of tourists' satisfaction with sightseeing activities at resources tourism sites in Ho Chi Minh City by Hoang Trong Tuan (2015) shows the rigor degree of relationships is different, the strongest is the relationship between tourist satisfaction and safety For a new tourist destination, the most important is security and safety If the destination safety and security for tourists, the image of the destination will be improved, increasing tourist satisfaction From
there, the author hypothesized H8:
Hypothesis H8: Feeling of Security affects the same dimension with tourists’ satisfaction
The proposed research model is as following:
Figure 1 Proposed research model
Source: Author (2018)
Responsiveness
Natural environment Service capacity
Infrastructure
Tourists’ satisfaction with tourist destinations Reliability
Travel products Price
Security
Trang 53 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Data Collection Methods
3.1.1 Secondary data
Secondary data of the study using time of data in
the period of 2015 - 2017, collected from
reference, based on available information sources:
Reports of the Department of Culture, Sports and
Tourism of An Giang province (Number of
tourists visiting), data from Vietnam National
Administration of Tourism, data from the General
Statistics Office of Vietnam, data from the An
Giang Provincial Portal, data from the Tri Ton
District Portal, data from the Tri Ton District
Portal (Statistical Yearbook), socioeconomic
development plans of An Giang province and data
from tourism companies in An Giang province
3.1.2 Primary data
Primary data was collected from interviews;
interviewees were individual tourists traveling to
Bay Nui
The method was Convenience sampling, selecting
the tourists who were traveling to traditional trade
villages such as Khmer Van Giao brocade
weaving village (Tinh Bien), Palm sugar cooking
village (Tinh Bien, Tri Ton), Chau Lang pottery
village (Tri Ton), tourist destinations in Bay Nui
such as Temple of Bau Muop (Tinh Bien), Tra Su
Melaleuca forest (Tinh Bien), Ta Pa Lake (Tri
Ton) and O Thum Lake (Tri Ton) for direct
interview
Determination of sample size: Based on the
research of Hair & ctg (2006) for reference of the
expected sample size, whereby the minimum
sample size will be 5 times the total number of
observed variables, this is the appropriate sample
size for the study used EFA discovery factor
analysis (Nguyen Dinh Tho, 2011) With the
formula n = 5*m, m is the number of questions in
the questionnaire Within the study, there were 31
variables, so the survey panel conducted interview
with 31 survey questions, the minimum number of
collected sample according to the formula was
155 observations In order to ensure better
representation, this study used a sample size of
300 observations Survey result obtained 285 eligible observations, 15 observations did not meet the survey requirements Based on the frequency of tourists at tourist destinations, the topic focuses on collecting information at major tourist destinations in Bay Nui such as Tra Su Melaleuca forest and Temple of Bau Muop
3.2 Analytical methods
To assess the current situation of tourism development in the trade villages in Bay Nui, the topic uses statistical analysis
To identify factors affecting tourists' satisfaction
at traditional trade village tourist places in Bay Nui, An Giang province an in-depth interview method was used with tourists at Bay Nui, then adjusted to scale: The initial theoretical scale of the research topic is built on the scales of previous studies Based on the result of the in-depth interview to calibrate the scale, thereby building
an official scale for the topic
In order to estimate the influence of factors affecting tourist satisfaction at traditional trade village in Bay Nui, the researcher used descriptive statistics method and rating scales measured by Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient, EFA method and linear regression method
4 RESEARCH RESULTS
4.1 Description of research sample
Survey results of tourists at traditional trade village in Bay Nui, An Giang province show that tourists range 19 to 58 years of age, the average age is 29 years old and mostly students and active young people who like to travel The gender of tourists who have visited traditional trade villages
in Bay Nui are primirily female, accounting for 66.2%, while the male gender accounts for 33.8%
In addition, the income of each interviewee varied due to age, education level and profession Most high-income interviewees had stable income such
as bankers or business men/women whereas low-income earners were mostly students, housewives and farmers
Trang 6According to the survey data, tourists visiting
traditional trade villages in Bay Nui had many
different levels of education Specifically, 21.8%
of visitors held lower-secondary education, 30.6%
of visitors possessed high-school education,
15.5% of visitors with Intermediate-College level
and 32.0% of visitors had university degrees
Educational level is also one of the factors
affecting travel demand, awareness and spending
levels of tourists The survey showed that the ratio
of tourists with university degrees was highest in
the group with the understanding that the higher
the education level, the more demand for travel
and leisure
4.2 Scale results
The result of the reliability test showed that the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients of the scales are all higher than 0.7 The corrected item - total correlation is greater than 0.3 However, the parking lot near the tourist area of the Infrastructure group has a total correlation of 0.266 < 0.3, Cronbach's Alpha coefficient if item deleted will be 0.723 The author deleted this variable and the remaining variables were included in the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
Table 1 Measurement scale testing
Item meet the conditions
of Cronbach’s Alpha reliability
Item not meet the conditions of Cronbach’s Alpha reliability
Source: Survey data on visitors in Bay Nui, An Giang between August 2017 and January 2018
4.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis
Test result of KMO coefficient = 0.682, Bartlett
Sig test significance level = 0.000, total variance
explained = 63.591% The scale shows that
Eigenvalue = 1.102 satisfies the exploratory factor
analysis The author put 30 variables into the EFA
with Principal Component method and using Varimax rotation with disturbance of factors to forming new factor groups The result shows that all observed variables have a factor loading greater than the standard (0.50)
Table 2 Rotated Component Matrix
Clean restroom 0.767
Trang 7Variables Component
Variety transportation 0.639
Wide parking lot 0.613
Unique specialties and
Special drinking and
Variety and interesting
Interesting tourist line 0.729
Reasonable visiting
Reasonable specialties
Reasonable eating and
Reasonable follow
Providing service as
Finding information
Information is fully
Good English skills of
Staff always support
Trang 8Variables Component
The number of visitors
Source: Survey data on visitors in Bay Nui, An Giang between August 2017 and January 2018
Through the factor rotation result, 9 factors were
discovered and all variables had factor loading
greater than 0.5 The variables of the new factors
are sorted and named accordingly: Infrastructure,
Travel products, Price, Reliability, Natural
Environment, Service Capacity, Responsiveness,
Safety and Security In addition, the author also
tested the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of the
new factors The result showed that all the factors
have Cronbach Alpha coefficient greater than 0.6
4.4 Multiple regression analysis
In theory, a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0 (or near 0) means that the two variables are not related to each other; conversely if a coefficient of -1 or 1 means the two variables have an absolute relationship If the value of the correlation coefficient is negative (r < 0), it means that when
x increases, y decreases (and vice versa, when x decreases, y increases); If the correlation coefficient value is positive (r > 0), it means that when x increases, y increases, and when y increases, x increases
Table 3 Correlation coefficien
Y: Tourists’
satisfaction
Sig
1 0.081
0.171
0.241**
0.000
0.313**
0.000
0.285**
0.000
0.195**
0.001
0.280**
0.000
0.317**
0.000
0.188**
0.001
0.101
0.089
X1:
X2: Travel
X5: Natural
X6: Service
X7:
Trang 9Y X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8 X9
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-sided test)
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-sided test)
Source: Survey data on visitors in Bay Nui, An Giang between August 2017 and January 2018
The correlation coefficient is statistically
significant at the level of 0.01 In Table 4, the
value of sig of the two independent variables X1
and X9 greater than 0.01, not correlated with the
dependent variables, the author deleted these two
variables before going into regression test
Analyzing the correlation between the dependent
variable and the seven independent variables, the
strongest correlation is the correlation between
tourist satisfaction and Responsiveness (0.317);
Next is the correlation between tourist satisfaction
and Price (0.313); Next is the correlation between
tourist satisfaction and Reliability (0.285); Next is
the correlation between tourist satisfaction and
Service capacity (0.280); Then the correlation
between tourist satisfaction and Travel products
(0.241); Next is the correlation between tourist
satisfaction and the Natural Environment (0.195);
Finally is the correlation between tourist
satisfaction and Safety (0.188)
Using the linear regression analysis method with the dependent variable being Tourist satisfaction; the independent variables are seven factor groups
of the scale including Travel products, Price, Reliability, Natural Environment, Service capacity, Responsiveness and Safety Seven factor groups of the scale are included to analyze with the Enter method The result shows that the adjusted R square is 0.508 > 0.5; This means that seven independent variables account for 50.8% of the variation of the dependent variable, the remaining 49.2% are due to non-model variables and random errors Durbin - Watson index d = 1.889; According to Hoang Trong & Chu Nguyen Mong Ngoc (2008), if the remaining do not have the first-order correlation, the value of d will be close to 2 Thus, it can be concluded that the regression model has no first-order correlation
In the ANOVA, the sig value of the F-test is 0.000
< 0.05 Thus, the linear regression model is consistent with the overall
Table 4 Coefficients
Model B Std Error Sig
Collinearity Statistics Tolerance VIF
1
Trang 10Model B Std Error Sig
Collinearity Statistics Tolerance VIF
Source: Survey data on visitors in Bay Nui, An Giang between August 2017 and January 2018
The analysis result shows that the Sig value of the
independent variables is < 0.05, indicating that the
independent variables are significant in the
research model and these variables have an impact
on tourists’ satisfaction at traditional trade
villages tourist place In addition, VIF values less
than 2 indicate no multicollinearity, meaning that
independent variables do not affect each other
The model shows that seven independent
variables (Travel Product, Price, Reliability,
Natural Environment, Service Capacity,
Responsiveness and Safety) all positively affect
the dependent variables If the remaining
independent variables remain unchanged when the
rating of Travel products increases by 1 unit, the
tourist satisfaction will increase by an average of
0.154 units Similarly, when the rating of Price
increases by 1 unit, tourist satisfaction will
increase by an average of 0.297 units When the
rating of Reliability increases by 1 unit, tourist
satisfaction will increase by an average of 0.243
units When the rating of Natural Environment
increases by 1 unit, tourist satisfaction will
increase by an average of 0.196 units When the
rating of Service Capacity increases by 1 unit,
tourist satisfaction will increase by an average of
0.242 units When the rating of Responsiveness
increases by 1 unit, tourist satisfaction will
increase by an average of 0.238 units And when
the rating of Safety increases by 1 unit, tourist
satisfaction will increase by an average of 0.300
units
5 CONCLUSION AND MANAGERIAL
IMPLICATIONS
5.1 Conclusion
The analysis result showed that the satisfaction of tourists to trade village in Bay Nui, An Giang province focused on four main factor groups: Price, Reliability, Service Capacity and Safety In addition, other three factors of Natural Environment, Responsiveness and Travel Products also contributed significantly to tourist satisfaction
5.2 Managerial implications
Development of trade village tourism in An Giang has many limitations currently The investment and exploitation of tourism products is not commensurate with the potential shortage of a large-scaled project of trade village that attracts tourism Throughout the site survey at traditional trade villages in Bay Nui, the author found that the local labor force still did not meet the requirements of customer service Trade village tourist locations were still primative while others have disappeared Besides, the local authority has not paid much attention to those villages and tourists only knew those places through word of mouth and the Internet Furthermore, due to not attracting much tourism, the promotion and marketing have not been supported by local tourism firms
First, the local cultural identity needed to be reserved and promoted in sustainable ways in order to improve the Natural Environment factor, which gain the attention of tourists Tourism development associated with the development of traditional trade villages is attracting more and more tourists Besides economic and social benefits, this tourism type also contributes to conserve and promote cultural and national