Tourists’ Attitude Towards Beach Tourism: A Study on Cox’s Bazar Beach of Bangladesh

Abstract

Cox’s Bazar is the tourist capital of Bangladesh and is famous for accommodating the longest unbroken beach, 120 kms in length, in the world. This type of smooth and straight beach is hardly seen in any place of the world. People from home and abroad gather in large number during the peak season. The major source of economy of Cox's Bazar is tourism. From general observation it is understood that tourism has brought a big change in this area. On economic front, the local community and other stakeholders are getting benefits and its economy is quite good compared to other backward area.

The purpose of this study is to measure the tourists’ attitude towards Cox’s Bazar beach. To attain the objective, present study attempts to cover the job with the current scenario of Cox’s Bazar as a tourist destination, investigate the influencing factor to choose Cox’s Bazar beach, explore the determinants influencing the tourists’ satisfaction and find out the relationship between beach tourism product and service choice with tourists’ demographic and with travel behavior characteristics. Moreover, to meet the objectives, distinctive hypothesis, theoretical framework and methodology have been developed. The findings of this study would help tourism marketers, planners, policy makers and concerned authorities to better understand their customers, identify the target market and market needs, and to differentiate services for them.

The literatures review presents a brief overview of tourism in Bangladesh, tourism in Cox’s Bazar, tourists’ attitude as well as relevant tourists’ choice and satisfaction factors. Literatures on attitude and tourists’ behavior provide a conceptual link between attitude components and tourism consumer behavior. Some literatures on visitors’ choice and satisfaction include descriptions of the choice factors, expectations and performance attributes, theories have been used to identify the choice and satisfaction attributes for this study. Factors influencing tourist choice have described on the basis of pull and push factors. Determinants of tourists’ satisfaction are identified based on expectancy-disconfirmation theory (Clemons & Woodruff, 1992).

A survey has been conducted in Cox’s Bazar Beach area. A simple random sampling technique has been used to collect data by means of a personal survey, using questionnaires distributed to the visitors at Cox’s Bazar Beach area. Appropriate statistical analyses such as frequencies, descriptive, Analysis of Variance, Paired t test, Correlation analysis, factor analysis and Stochastic Frontier analysis have been used fulfilling the respective objectives and descriptors.

The result shows that tourists wishing to visit Cox’s Bazar Beach give more importance on the factor ‘natural attraction’, explaining highest variance with highest eigenvalue that are followed by ‘accommodation’ and ‘emergency and caring service’. Mean, standard deviation and variance of each attributes as well as significance differences between expectation and performance attributes have been calculated by using paired t-test, based on expectation and confirmation theory in order to measure the tourists’ satisfaction. Then, those attributes have been positioned on a grid according to expectation and conformity.

Again the factor analysis, conducted for satisfaction attributes to create correlated variable composites from the original attributes, results to eight dimensions: ancillary services, accommodation and its price, destination facilities, cost of activities, activities and shopping, transportation facility, information & medical services and attraction & service quality. The Stochastic Frontier Analysis results reveal that the factors emergency and ancillary services, accommodation and security, and destination on the spot facilities have highly significant influences on the overall satisfaction of the tourists.

From the theoretical point of view, this study has several implications which can be added to the growing body of literature on tourism choice and satisfaction research. Based upon the results of this study, several recommendations have been made concerning the tourists’ choice and satisfaction with Cox’s Bazar tourism. First, knowing that what tourists seek at Cox’s Bazar Beach will help tourism marketers to better understand their customers. Second, findings relating to tourists choice behavior will help tourism planners developing appropriate strategies to attract their customers and serve them effectively. Third, knowing who the satisfied tourists are may help reducing marketing costs and maintain beach tourism destinations’ sustainability.

Key players such as host of beach tourism, tour operators and stake holders should pursue successful positioning strategies which should be driven by effective market segmentation and brand management strategy. According to the factor result, among all factors the tourists agree that ‘Natural attraction’ is the most important factor. So, in planning facilities, identity and biodiversity of the area must be considered since tourists pay great attention to feel the nature of sea areas. The marketer should provide more concentration on low-satisfaction and high expectation attributes with the maintaining of high-satisfaction and high-expectation attributes. Finally, in the age of media, to attract more tourists, marketers and policy makers of this destination should stress on carrying out promotional campaigns of Cox’s Bazar Beach in Bangladesh as the world’s longest beach inside and outside the country.