Marketing Magnet for Opening an Eco-Tourism Beach Resort in Lampung, Indonesia

Marketing Magnet for Opening an Eco-Tourism Beach Resort in Lampung, Indonesia

Introduction

Indonesia is one of the countries in the world with the largest tourist attraction sites. The sites range from the beautiful cities which include Lampung, Jakarta, Surabaya, and Lombok among others. The coastal beaches in Indonesia make it attractive for the tourist and it is one of the factors contributing to high tourist influx at any period of the year but especially during summer (Newsome, 2012, pg.54). In order to tap the resources pertaining to the high number of tourist activities in such beaches in Indonesia, it is important for an enthusiastic business person to start a business idea like the opening of a beach resort and in general the hotel industry in such beaches. Beach resort business is considered one of the most attractive businesses today with respect to the current human lifestyle. Additionally, Indonesia is on the verge of expanding its tourism sector as stipulated in the given government’s long-term business plan for the country. Therefore, a beach resort in Lampung is considered a business gap which seeks to tap the high influx of tourists in this region (Rogerson, 2013, pg.13). In this regard, it becomes my pleasure to conduct a research on the marketing magnet and what will possibly make a beach resort business to thrive in Lampung beach via the opening of the Eco-tourism Beach Resort.

Problem statement

Tourism development in Indonesia is pertaining to various aspects of tourism growth and tourism development as far the background for tourism is concerned. Tourism in Indonesia is analyzed at the national level in relation to domestic-foreign visitors, the significance of tourism to the general economy and the tourist destinations (Anuar, 2012, pg.59). This research is anchored on the aspects that would possibly make the eco-tourism beach resort business thrive Lampung. Currently, the Indonesian government is trying all the possible ways of improving the triose sector in close to seven cities in Indonesia. The most targeted source of tourist attraction being the Eco-tourism beach resorts which this research seek to anchor to the market. The current problem in Indonesia is that most of the beaches with good sites are fully harvested to accommodate tourist, a problem which makes the country not to realize her full potential as far as tourism is concerned. I seek to evaluate the possible means of improving this condition through this research. In this research, the main aim is to identify the customer segment in Lampung Indonesia which will anchor the beach resort to a business which will effectively market the business operations of an eco-tourism beach resort (Yogi, 2010, pg. 34). Eco-Tourism beach resort business in Lampung, Indonesia is subject to growth and development regarding the customer segment and the strategic position of the town.   

Research Design

The following steps were fundamental towards the development of the research.

Step 1. Literature review and information synthesis

A comprehensive literature review of some of the existing research was conducted to enhance and develop the theoretical basis of this research. During this review, some key features like the identification of the sustainability indicators, the identification of the carrying capacities of the existing beach resorts were taken into considerations (Baporikar, 2012, pg.118). The main idea of literature analysis was to gather the required know-how on the fundamental issues the research had omitted. The review covered the development of tourism in Indonesia and the projected tourist influx five years to come. It also covered the coastal environment in Lampung and the design and planning approaches most coastal hotels in Lampung have adopted and finally the impact of tourism on the economy, society, and environment.

Step 2. Sustainability approach

This approach was arrived at after considering the economic, social and environmental approaches which collectively, contributed to the sustainability indicators and the carrying capacity determinants. In the Sustainability indicators, I considered the Delphi Technique which was very important for my research (De Alwis, 2010, pg.260). In regard to this technique, it was easy to identify the ecological indicators, physical, psychological, economic and managerial indicators which are fundamental to starting an Eco-tourism beach resort industry. The carrying capacity must be sustainable as well.

Step 3. Sampling Beach Resorts

In this sampling techniques, I applied the use of questionnaires to the stakeholders. The stakeholder questionnaire was important in collecting data on the various indicators of successful beach hotels in Lampung (Utama, 2014, pg.56). The stakeholders consisted of the managers of these hotels, the designers, and visitors which included both local and foreign tourists. In the sampling technique, I incorporated the sustainable carrying capacity with regards to the decision model. Here, the quantitative approach in data analysis would be of great importance when it comes to the analysis. Out of the sampled stakeholders, questionnaires were administered to investigate if the future population at Lampung Indonesia is acting in a sustainable way to meet the sustainable rationale for a beach resort business (De Pablos, 2012, pg.43). The questionnaire was the most effective means of gathering data because I found it to be efficient in dealing with a large group of individuals. In total, I had 278 respondents who were issued with the questionnaires. Out the 278, 168 were customers, 70 beach resort managers and 20 hotel workers and another 20 environmentalists. The targeted hotels for the data collection were selected in random and in consideration of the equal distribution. This would provide accurate data as far the research is concerned. Therefore, use of questionnaire was the most applied method in data collection in this research.

Step 4. Implement the Delphi Procedure.

This approach was conducted to gather the expert views on the future beach resort industry. Most sustainability indicators were identified in the synthesis research conducted on the topic and filtered in accordance with the scale of importance along the coastal regions and the development of the beach resorts (Firoiu, 2013, pg.93). In this regard, a two-round modified Delphi procedure was used in this design to achieve consensus from the selected sample of the recognized experts in design and planning. A total of twelve experts completed the two rounds two experts from Abu Dhabi, four from Egypt and six from Indonesia. Round one composed of a list of sustainability criteria where the panel identified the common sustainability criteria which are fundamental to the development of beach resort. The following parameters emerged in the final list of the sustainability indicators. They included, Soil Quality & Land Management, Air Quality, Water Quality and Supply, Energy Conservation, Terrestrial Wildlife, Biodiversity, Use of Non-Toxic Materials or Product, Self-reliance on Site Resources, Productivity and Over-consumption, Development Integration, Local Economy and Employment, Public Participation and Decision Making, Beach Quality and Organization, Maintenance Quality Programs, Services, Facilities, and Activities, Aquatic Wildlife, Natural Vegetation, Natural Characteristics of the Site, Atmospheric and Climate Characteristics, Streams or Drainage ways, Sand Dunes. All these factors in unison comprise the sustainable ecotourism (Ioppolo, 2013, pg. 462).

Data Collection

The main methods used in data collection in this research included conducting sampling, survey method, use of questionnaires (Ghaedi, 2014, pg.90). I administered questionnaires to the aforementioned persons and the questionnaires as tools for data collection in this research were exhaustively used. The data on customer segment was collected using the sampling techniques, and survey methods across the estates in Lampung. The process of data collection was technical since it involved the collection of data from ten beach resort and hotels in five towns in Indonesia. I applied various methods of collecting quantitative data which included data mining, in data mining I was involved in collecting data from the Google websites which comprised of filling of a few questionnaires on the website. In the data capture, I had databases of various successful hotels in Lampung and their market anchoring strategies and their customer segments. The questionnaires were collected after a time span of five to six hours after I was curtained adequate information was ready for analysis. Out of the 168 targeted beach resorts, all the information obtained were available for analysis. The questionnaires were structured to capture all the necessary information (Minazzi, 2015, pg. 12). The information required ranged from the factors that lead to most tourist touring the beaches during summer, quality services and foodstuff and the minimum capital required to set up a beach resort with respect to Lampung beach. The questionnaire was structured such that all the information required would be centered on the research thesis.

Data Analysis

The information retrieved from the questionnaires were put to statistical analysis. The sample size (n=278) was good enough to obtain a reliable result (Groverman, 2012, pg. 20). The hypothesis in question here is as follows. H0= (Eco-Tourism beach resort business in Lampung, Indonesia is subject to growth and development) and the alternative hypothesis H1= (Eco-Tourism beach resort business in Lampung, Indonesia is stagnant). Basically, the tools for data analysis here was Microsoft Excel and SPSS in some cases. The aim of this analysis is to inspect, cleanse, model and transform the available data into necessary information and supporting the thesis. 168 hotel guests were approached personally to participate in the process. All of them agreed to respond the questionnaires. However, 2 questionnaires were subsequently excluded due to illegibility and omission reasons. This resulted in 99.28% response rate. This resulted in a total of 276 feasible questionnaires used during this process (N=278, n=276; N =Expected sample size, n=Actual sample size). The missing data was screened by the missing value function in SPSS version 20. The resultant outcome produced negligible items having a non-response. No systematic pattern was realized in the data set. In order to cater for the missing values, I used the substitution by the mean substitution method (Guest, 2012, pg. 34). In this study, I also assessed the outliers by the application of the standardized values in the z-scores. Only cases where z-score was less than -4 and higher than 4 was eliminated from the dataset. In order to obtain normality in the data set, kurtosis and measures of Skewness were applied. The dataset was normal in terms of the respondents’ demographic characteristics. By cutting both the upper and the lower tails in the distribution, the data set was considered normally distributed.

Table 1 Gender result                  .

The gender result indicates the number of male respondents out of the whole sample size was slightly higher than females at 52.17% and 47.82% respectively.

Table 2 Age result

The majority of the respondents from the age result were the working class of age (27-36) at 44.56%. This is the active population in the production process of any country and Indonesia in specific.

Table 3. The Respondents’ Rank Cohorts

The rank cohort of the respondents suggests majority of the respondents were guests at 60.87% and both the workers and the environmentalists were same at 7.25%.

Table 4. Guests Duration of Stay Result

Most guests liked to stay in these beach resorts for 4 nights 48.55%. On the other hand, those who stayed in these resorts for over nine nights recorded the least percentage at 16.30 percent.

Table 5. The Purpose of Stay Result

Extremely high number of guests’ purpose of stay was holiday (98.19%) whereas a few stayed for business or conferences (1.81%).

Table 6. Guests Purposed to Visit the Hotels Again

Across all gender in research, the guests purposed to visit the hotels for males were 97.22% against the 2.78% males who would not come back due to one reason or the other. The females, on the other hand, were 94.7% confirmed revisit against the 5.3% females who said they would not revisit the hotels. From this statistics alone, the research draws us closer to the thesis or the null hypothesis (H0 = Eco-Tourism beach resort business in Lampung, Indonesia is subject to growth and development).

A statistical analysis of the available data was conducted using the SPSS pro version. From this analysis, the hypothesis in tests is the null hypothesis (H0) which is subject to rejection and hence the application of the alternative hypothesis (H1) (Khan, 2012, pg.11). The main point of consideration is the variables which when combined would result in a feasible p-value of the level of significance of 5% (0.05) or the 95% confidence interval. If the H0 is outside the confidence interval, it is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is used.

Findings

Exploratory factors for quality of interaction

In this section, I proposed sub-dimensions of interaction quality which included attitude, problem-solving skills, behavior and expertise among the resort managers and the workers. The sample used in this case was 90 (n’=90; managers = 70, workers= 20). This dataset was substantial and ample for the right correlation above 0.4 using the correlation matrix (0.30 < r < 0.90). This used the correlation matrix tests and the Bartelt’ test which was again significant (5%) (Burdett, 2014, pg.14). From the data analysis, the guests who were purposed to visits the hotels again in the next summer for holidays were composed of 97.22% male against the 94.7% for females. This is greatly attributed to the good customer relations and the as evident in the exploratory factors for interaction quality. From this result, level of significance of the tests was 5% (0.05) form the confidence interval (Guest, 2012, pg. 34). It shows that the customer relationships in terms of the interactive quality are key to attract the exiting guests to make revisits to these resorts. This factor is again contributing to the fact that the null hypothesis is relevant and significant ate the same time hence its application in the results of this research.

Table two of the age result shows the highest age bracket among the guests is 27-36 years at 44.56% and also as evidenced in the pie-chart below. This age bracket as mentioned earlier is the most productive age cohort to any country. The implication, therefore, is complete money circulation in Indonesia with respect to the tourism sector.

Figure 1

This age bracket is followed closely by the group 47-56 at close to 27% again a productive age group (Blattberg, 2010, pg. 210). This indicator is a positive indicator for tourism development in Indonesia, and in Lampung. Opening an echo tourism beach resort in Lampung, therefore, is a sure deal in terms of a profit-making business. The level of significance according to the p-value is 0.003 form the normalized probability distribution below. All factors leading to a positive ecotourism growth contributed to the long tails in the normal curve below.

This curve is normally distributed with mean zero and standard deviation of one N ~ (0, 1). When the area under the 95% is considered, we see clearly that the region is a region of 68%. This means that all the parameter values contributing to the positive comments from the guests were normally distributed after the ignorance of the long tails. So these values are between the mean and the standard deviation of one (Guest, 2012, pg.35). The values of the guests purposely going to make the next visits to the hotels were standardized using the formula z=(x-μ)/σ   where μ; population mean, σ; population standard deviation and x the value to be converted. Approximately, all the values for both females from the z-score tables were between the 95% confidence interval. This shows significance in the values of the guests purposed to visit again the hotels and beach resorts (Benu, 2013, pg. 68). From the research findings, it is absolute that the null hypothesis is confirmed (H0 holds) hence the rejection of the alternative hypothesis (H1) and definitely H0 ≠ H1. Form the results, the tourism sector is bound to expand in Lampung, and hence this research becomes the marketing magnet for opening an eco-tourism beach resort in Lampung.

Recommendations

Through this research, and from the results from the managers of the beach hotels who filled the questionnaires, 65 out of 70 managers cited strict government rules and high taxation which derail their morale for expanding the beach resort industry. This composed of close to 93% of the managers who managed to fill the questionnaires. This percentage is so high and a recommendation thus follows (Wearing, 2016, pg.112). The government should lower the taxes for the hotel industry to encourage the business and thus attract both local and international tourists. The other recommendation is a research-based recommendation. For any business enterprise, if more than 5% customers vow to abandon your goods and services, then you need to ponder about that. The total percentage of both males and females who vowed not to visit these beach hotels cited insecurity reasons. The insecurities here ranged from unsecured and confidential rooms, as well as the external environment insecurity (Ernawati, 2015, pg.112). The beach resort managers should seek assistance in order to have the security persons all over their compounds and the installation of the CCTV cameras which were evidently lacking in most hotels. Also, they need to have the modern rooms for close to five-star hotels. Perhaps, these points are for consideration for opening a new beach resort business in Lampung.

Assessment Rationale and Conclusion

This research forms part of my personal work in this course. It is therefore authentic and merits the originality criteria. This research has equipped me with the necessary data collection and analysis skills which are vital for my curriculum. The rationale for the data collection and analysis in this research were inclusive of ideas from other literary sources hence enabling me to have an integrated quantitative research. The area (Lampung) was carefully selected because it has the potential for harboring many beach resorts and the business can succeed with appropriate measures in place (Cruz, 2013, pg.35). During this research, there were some problems which I encountered during the process of data collection. As cited before, the expectation was to have a sample size of 278, but due to errors in the printing, 2 of the questionnaires were having omissions and were illegible as well. This reduced the sample size to 276 collected questionnaires. The sample size was however not very big which may raise the questions on the reliability of the research. However, the size met the threshold for a reliable sample in a research work. The results would assist any person who looks forward to starting a beach resort business on the beaches of Lampung and the things to take into considerations for the business to thrive (Teo, 2012, pg.117).

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