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Tourist's gender and income differences on perceptions and intentions
of online information
R. Radzliyana & P.H. Khor
Faculty of Sports Science and Recreation, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Perlis, Malaysia
A.A. Azlan
Faculty of Mathematic and Statistic, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Perlis, Malaysia
K.C. Lim
College of Law, Government and International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Kedah, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: This study examined the perceptions of online information within leisure and among tour-
ists particularly from gendered and income perspectives. The sport website acceptance model was utilized
to develop items consisted in the survey questionnaire. The participants of the study were 386 local and
international tourists involved in Kuala Lumpur Standard Chartered Marathon 2013 (228 males and 158
females), and they were selected by using the simple random sampling technique. Perceptions of online
information and intention to use websites comprised of four components namely accessibility, flexibility,
interactivity and reliability. The t -test results indicated that there was significant difference between mean
scores of perceptions of online information between genders particularly for accessibility item. ANOVA
results also indicated that there was significant difference between mean scores of perceptions of online
information for different income groups. Post-hoc Tukey HSD analysis revealed significant difference of
mean scores on perceptions of online information between different income groups particularly for items
under accessibility component. Findings of this study suggested that future sport tourism organizations
may include other attributes apart from gender and income groups when developing and providing online
information since it can be easily reached by the related stakeholders as well as the society.
Keywords :
Gender, income, leisure, tourist, online information
1 INTRODUCTION
tourists due to its specific characteristics which
include convenient, more efficient and a less time
consuming service (Heung, 2003; Shilbury, Quick &
Westerbeek, 2003). Further, Cai, Feng, and Breiter
(2003) revealed that some tourists and potential
tourists often used the Internet involved in the
purchase decision, making decision on the tourism
destination as well as seeking for additional infor-
mation in significant to their travels. According to
Jang (2004), seeking information from the Internet
had offered numerous benefits to both travelers and
the tourism marketers in terms of cost-effective and
it allows real-time communication for both parties.
From time to time, the Internet becomes a
major source of information throughout the globe
(Peterson & Merino, 2003), thus it is important
for respective tourism organizations to provide
as much information as might be required by the
potential tourists on the website. For instance, as
referred to the tourism destination, an event is an
1.1 Background of the study
The Internet was recognized as an extremely
valuable marketing and communication tool due
to its specific characteristics compared to other
form of existed communication channels (Jere &
Davis, 2011). Research reported that these spe-
cific characteristics of online marketing include
accessibility, flexibility, interactivity and reliability
(Radzliyana, Khor & Lim, 2012). Initially, Rafaeli
and Sudweeks (1997) stated that the Internet was
an interactive channel of communication while
Berthon, Pitt, and Watson (1996) claimed that the
Internet service was reachable despite bounda-
ries. Therefore, the Internet enables businesses to
minimize costs but maximize audience needs and
segmentation.
Previous researchers had reported that the Inter-
net was gaining prominence among sports events
 
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