Factors influencing tourist visitation in marine tourism: lessons learned from FRI Aquarium Penang, Malaysia

Purpose - To establish tourist visitation to new tourism areas is in most cases dependent on tourists' behavior. Indeed, tourist visitation is considered among the primary components of the marine tourism operation. Such behavior is usually enacted in the form of destination awareness, destination image and motivation. Word of mouth is likely to influence tourist to visit. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that may influence tourists to visit marine tourist destinations. Design/methodology/approach - The study has utilized self-administered questionnaire survey and the target population are the visitors that came to FRI Aquarium. The survey period was from August 2012 to September 2012. Total of 179 responses were collected during this period. Findings - This study demonstrates that destination awareness, motivation and WOM are factors that influence the tourist to visit the FRI Aquarium. Interestingly, destination image however, has shown insignificant relationship with tourist visitation. WOM also found to be has a full mediating effect for awareness towards tourist visitation. For example, before visit, visitor may require some information beforehand and word of mouth is a direct medium to transfer the information. A key implication for FRI Aquarium is that it might be wise to assess such variables for their marketing strategies. Research limitations/implications - First, the sample was obtained from one marine aquarium in Malaysia. The comparative studies between aquariums are important to understand if there are any similarities and differences. It would be better to conduct the survey in other local aquariums such as the Underwater World, Langkawi and the KL Aquaria, Kuala Lumpur. Second, a longitudinal study is relevant to further investigate the factors that will influence the visitor visitation. Thus, future study should gather data from those who had visited the aquarium several times. This approach might improve the destination image results, which in this study shows insignificant relationship. That said, acknowledgements of these limitations also suggest a new direction of future research. Practical implications - FRI Aquarium is suggested to create more awareness to the public by placing an advertisement via mainstream and social media. Hence, FRI Aquarium is suggested to design environmentally marine life oriented educational programs in order to motivate and encourage more visitors to visit the place. Originality/value - In sum, this paper conjectures that an understanding of factors that influence the tourist to visit the marine tourism destination are worthy of additional research. Consequently, the findings help to understand how these factors can provide alternative sources of marketing to attract the long-term economic sustainability of the FRI Aquarium in marine tourism.