Profiling Tourists According to Spending Behaviour: Examining Perhentian and Pangkor Islands Visitors Rosmini Ismail and Khalizul Khalid Faculty of Management and Economics, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Tanjong Malim, Perak

INTRODUCTION Tourism has become prominent industry in many countries all over the world (UNWTO, 2012). Assisting the industry to gain more advantage is by conducting tourist profiling studies through market segmentation approach. Many tourism studies have emphasized on the significant of market segmentation approach as a marketing tool (Chung, Oh, Kim, & Han, 2004; Liu, Kiang, & Brusco, 2012). Meanwhile, a study by Rid, Ezeuduji, and Pröbstl-Haider (2014) were able to identify four distinct market segments for rural tourism in Gambia through this approach.

INTRODUCTION Following previous studies, this paper is segmenting tourist profiles according to spending behaviour of retail expenditure for Pangkor and Perhentian Island by embarking on the following objectives: (1) To categorise tourists spending range for retail expenditure; (2) To distinguish between the non-spending profiles with spending profiles and (3) To determine tourist profiles according to spending range.

METHODOLOGY The study employs survey method through distribution of guided-questionnaires and interviews to gather information on tourist expenditure. Items in the questionnaires consist of demographic and trip characteristics that act as predictor variables. Originally, there are eleven and twelve variables selected for Pangkor Island and Perhentian respectively - Perhentian has two Islands (Kecil and Besar) additional predictor variable for the island is location.

METHODOLOGY However, due to unresponsive feedback for educational level and household income variables from Perhentian Island’s respondents, the two variables were dropped from Perhentian Island’s analysis. Thus, bringing the total of eleven (Pangkor Island) and ten predictor variables (Perhentian Island). Questionnaires were distributed at Pangkor Jetty, Pangkor and along several popular beaches at both islands in Perhentian Island.

METHODOLOGY Following several previous studies such as by Mok and Iverson (2000), Díaz-Pérez, Bethencourt-Cejas, and Álvarez-González (2005), Kim, Timothy, and Hwang (2011), data in this study were analysed using decision tree approach with exhaustive Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID). This procedure, utilising the SPSS version 19, was carried out to generate predictive model for spending behaviour according to retail expenditure with predictor/descriptor variables as mentioned earlier.

METHODOLOGY The procedure of analysis for CHAID involved splitting the test samples into various nodes by selecting largest significant relationship between independent and dependent variables. The resulting nodes were further divided into various nodes with smaller sample size by other descriptors. The splitting stopped if there was no significant different between the variables.

METHODOLOGY As in Chen (2003), the study has set a minimum sample size of 30 for child node to overcome normality distribution assumption. Ensuing similar studies only nodes with gain index score of more than 100% will be selected as target segment. (do Valle, Pintassilgo, Matias, & André, 2012; Kim et al., 2011). The index value of above 100% indicates that there are more cases in the target category than the overall percentage in the target category

METHODOLOGY Data collections were conducted at the islands at a separate period by observing Off-peak and Peak seasons. Sampling for Pangkor Island were taken from 1st November 2012 until 14th November 2012 with 8 days of off-peak and 6 days of peak period. Perhentian Island’s samples include 6 days of off-peak and 4 days of peak period at two separate dates; 27th – 30th May 2013 and 25th – 30th August 2013. 8 researchers and 12 field assistants (Pangkor Island) 2 researchers and 10 field assistants (Perhentian Island).

RESULTS 792 visitors from Pangkor Island and 723 from Perhentian participated in the research. However, 59 returned questionnaires (24 from Pangkor and 35 from Perhentian Island) were discarded, bringing into total of 768 of Pangkor and 688 of Perhentian Island questionnaires deemed usable. Respondents comprise of 679 domestic and 89 international tourists for Pangkor Island, while Perhentian Island consist of 248 domestic and 440 international tourists.

CONCLUSIONS Tourists spending range for retail expenditure Pangkor Island: (i) Less than RM70 (ii) RM70 to RM140 (iii) Above RM140 Perhentian Island:(i) Less than RM145 (ii) RM145 to RM290 (iii) Above RM290

CONCLUSIONS – SPENDING/NON SPENDING PROFILES

CONCLUSIONS – TOURISTS’ SPENDING PROFILE (PANGKOR)

CONCLUSIONS – TOURISTS’ SPENDING PROFILE (PERHENTIAN)

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