The way youth enjoying KILIM Geopark - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 196

youth tourism as a transition process to adult-
hood or more specifically, it is '…an expression
of the adolescent drive to expand the region of free
movement' (Schnhammer, 1992, p. 19). Youth tour-
ism was initially motivated by the idea of global
peace and cultural exchanges (Mohammad Taiyab,
2005). In addition, the fast-pace growing progress
is also said to be contributed by the affordable
transportation cost (Moisă, 2010b) and the acces-
sibility to and opportunity of financial supports
(Mohammad Taiyab, 2005). Richards and Wilson
(2003) conceptualise youth travelers are highly
educated students aged below 26 and according to
Wilkening (2010), youth travelers are defined as a
person who aged between 18 to 30 years old. Youth
tourists are sometimes viewed as people who dare
themselves to experience things that are culturally,
socially and psychologically differ from their root
(Maoz, 2007).

kyants & Vidishcheva, 2010) and factors dif-
ferentiating youth travelers and other travelers'
travel include urbanization process, the popula-
tion's dynamic and socio-economic of the fam-
ily (Moisă, 2010b). Moisa (Moisă, 2010a) argued
that youth tourism assessment propensity was
more towards leisure activities undertaken rather
than focusing on specific tourism activities expe-
rienced. At a deeper level, youth tourism is usu-
ally studied in relation to the quality of tourism
facilities provided and accessibility to hospitality
services (Richards & Wilson, 2004). Against this
background, this paper aims to provide insights
on youth travelers' satisfaction and acceptance
towards KILIM Geopark. As the youth defi-
nition is changeable as emphasized by United
Nations (2001, p. 2): “...the definitions of youth
had changed continuously in response to fluctuat-
ing political, economic and socio-cultural circum-
stances ”, for the purpose of this paper, Kale.
Mcintyre, and Weir (1987) criteria (individuals
that fit in the 18 to 35 age group) is employed in
defining youths.

2.2 Satisfaction and acceptance
When it comes to analyzing the tourism destina-
tions' successfulness, conventional wisdom relates
this to visitors' satisfaction in relation to serv-
ices provided at a tourism spot. In the context
of nature-based tourism, which operates on the
limited natural resources, visitors' satisfaction is
an indicator of '…the performance of attraction
providers in terms of providing service to their visi-
tors ' (Nowacki, 2013, p. 18). Satisfaction is viewed
as '…expectation, performance, expectancy dis-
comfirmation (expectation minus performance),
attribution, emotion and equity' (Bowen & Clarke,
2002, p. 297). Chen, Goodman, and Li (2013)
envisage satisfaction as '…a construct with expe-
rience dependency because its formation requires a
consumer to have actual experience with the con-
sumption '. This interlinks the visitors' satisfaction
with their acceptance towards a particular tourism
spot, which directly influences its popularity (Yük-
sel & Yüksel, 2003). Echoing Yuksel and Yuksel's
(2003) finding, Su (2004, p. 397) demonstrates the
visitors' satisfaction (and acceptance) fundamental
role in dealing with '…competitive differentiation
and customer retention' . Here, acceptance in rela-
tion to tourism experiences is guided by visitors'
preferences and perceptions (Dorwart, Moore &
Leung, 2009), where central to this perspective is
the belief that visitors interpret their environment
in terms of their needs, and prefer settings in which
they are likely to function more effectively (Kaplan
& Kaplan, 1989).

3 RESEARCH METHOD

This paper is a part of KILIM Geopark research
where it specifically focuses on youth travelers'
satisfaction and acceptance towards the quality
of activities and hospitality offered by KILIM
Geopark. Given the nature of exploratory aspect,
quantitative research method was employed in
addition to revisiting the body of knowledge.
Self-administered questionnaire survey, which
utilized both close-ended questions and likert
type scale, was constructed by working closely
with the tourism professionals (hotel managers,
travel agents, and tourist attraction's representa-
tive). Within a two-month data collection time-
frame, 142 questionnaires survey were retrieved
from the youth travelers who visited KILIM
Geopark. Three hypotheses were tested, namely:
[1] each dependent variable (a tourism activitity)
is well connected to independent variables (tour-
ism activities), [2] each dependent variable (a
tourism activity) is well connected to independ-
ent variable (services and environment variables)
and [3] KILIM Geopark's nature attractions
encourage people to participate in non-water-
based activities.

4 THE YOUTHS PERSPECTIVE

2.3 Summary
Youth travelers were observed to be spending
more than the mainstream tourists (Khoshpa-

For the purpose of this research, the tourism activ-
ities were categorized into groups of water-based
(fish farm, open sea, fishing trip, kayaking, island