Definition of tourism

Introduction

1.1 Background of study

Tourism is the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes. In 21st century, travel is a common thing for people, but in the past people hard to travel from place to place because lack of transportation and technology. Travel defines as people moving from one place to another.

People travel because of pull and  push factor ,push and pull factor are influence by lots of factors such as economic ,social, climate, geographical characteristic and etc. spatial movement is very important and worth our attention, it focusing on tourist generating areas and tourist receive areas as well as the transit route between its. To do so, I have adopted Leiper’s model, which was suggested in 1979 and adapted in 1995 (Figure 1).

Tourist flow is a flows or spatial interaction between places, with the destination area containing a surplus of a commodity and the generating area having a demand for a commodity. It influenced by a variety of push and pull factors.

Batu Ferringhi located on the northern coast of Penang, Malaysia. This place is chosen as one of the attraction places in Penang because of the sandy beach and luxury resort.  The only entrance by land to go to Batu Ferringhi is the narrow mountain’s road.

Penang Hill or affectingly known by locals as “Bukit Bendara”, is one of the only cool places to visit in Penang. A hill with elevation of about 833 m (2723 ft) has proved that it is one of the main attractions not only to the foreigner but also locals.

1.2Research statement

The study of tourist flows can be very important because by understanding the travel movement, government or the private sector can create a new marketing strategic to attract more tourists. By studying the geographic characteristics of exiting tourist, it can reveal the potential market, such as ecotourism, heritage tourism and etc.

1.3Research Questions

• What is the tourist pattern?
• What are the most famous attraction places in Penang?
• Where is the most of the tourist come from?
• What is the tourist flow of Batu Ferringhi and Penang Hill

1.4 Study Methology

Stage 1: Preliminary Stage

On this stage, study background and the scope of study will be written down; goal and research’s objective will be set up so that it can make the research path clearer beside that literature review and the significance of the research will be written down. Survey questionnaires will be designated in this stage. (Refer to figure 2)

Stage 2: The Data Collection

The method use in the research will be quantitative so that more information from the tourists will be getting by conduct survey questionnaire. The data collection will be dividing into two, primary and secondary. For primary data collection, survey and interview will be conduct so that can know more about tourist travel pattern, I also will interview with the stalls seller or shop in Batu Ferringhi and Penang hill. For secondary, information will be get from books, journals and internet. (Refer to figure 2)

Stage 3: Analysis and Synthesis

On the stage, the survey questionnaire will be compile and using the SPSS (the statistics software) to create the graph or statistics. Beside that, the tourist flows network in Penang will be created. (Refer to figure 2)

Stage 4: Recomendation

In this stage, the recommendation how to improve the tourism in Batu Ferringhi and Penang hill, how to solve the impact of tourist flows. So that, the tourism is Batu Ferringhi and Penang hill will not face the decline stage or over crowded in one place. (Refer to figure 2)

1.5Goal

The goal of this study is to identify the tourist movement patterns and to solve the impact influence by tourist flows.

1.6 Study Objectives

The major objectives that will be indentified are:

• To indentify the travel pattern of tourist in Batu Ferringhi and Penang Hill
• To indentify which country tourist come to Batu Ferringhi and Penang Hill
• To indentify the major influences of tourist movement in Batu Ferringhi and Penang Hill

1.7 Hypothesis

• The number of tourist going to Batu Ferringhi and Penang hill
• The development in Batu Ferringhi and Penang hill will be increase.
• Lots of tourist coming from Europe country and Middle East.

1.8 Significance of study

The significances of the research for the tourism department and the private sector are they can use the research as reference so that the can understand the tourist flows in Penang beside that, they can implement new marketing strategic to get more profit .other than that, by knowing the tourist pattern ,government can locate more resources to the place.

By doing the research, a statistic report will be written out, it will benefit to future researcher to conduct the same research. The research also will help the developer to develop the place after they review the statistic.

1.9 Scope of study

The two major barriers are time and seasonal .Time is a barrier for my research although I have limited time to complete it because need to analyze the survey and finding reference sources. Tourism is a seasonal so the research will not accurate when the time goes by so time management very important.

1.10 Study area

The study area chosen for my research is Batu Ferringhi and Penang hill. Batu Ferringhi also called as the foreigner’s rock is a strip of beaches on the northern coast of Penang .The only way to go up is the narrow mountain road, there are two entrance one is from Tanjung Bunga and another one is from Teluk Bahang . Batu Ferringhi also is one of the tourist attraction place in Malaysia, a lot of foreigner tourist like to stay at here, on top of the hill also got a lot of chain hotels group example Shangri la hotel group, holidays inn and Parkroyal hotel.

Other than that, there also have a lot of transportation company, they always stand by to pick up the guest go to down town. Beside that there also have a lot of souvenir shop so that the tourist can buy souvenir to their friends and relatives. Everyday there also have night market, the most special trends in the night market is bargaining. Batu Ferringhi is high tourists flows area in Malaysia because of the environments and the people are hospitality .The high tourist flow also give positive and negative impact to the place such as pollution, traffic congestion, increase in price and etc. When peak season, Batu Ferringhi will over crowded and is a main issue for the local government.

Another place chosen is Penang hill, Penang Hill is the oldest hill station in Malaysia. It comprises a hilly granite mass in the middle of Penang Island reaching an elevation of 833 meters (2723 ft) at Western Hill. Penang hill also is the only cool place in Penang and it is famous not only for foreigners but locals. There are three way going up to Penang hill, by the funicular train, by jeep and by hiking.

Theoretical Framework

Chapter 2

2.0 Literature Review

Tourist flows are a form of spatial interaction between two areas, with the destination area containing a surplus of a commodity example tourist attraction and the generating area having a deficit or demand for that commodity (Tourism and hospitality Geography). Tourist flows do not occur randomly but follow certain rules and are influenced by a variety of push and pull factors.

• Push factors are mainly concerned with the stage of economic development in the generating are and will include such factors as levels of affluence, mobility and holidays entitlement .Often, too, an advanced stage of economic development will not only give the population the means to engage in tourism but the pressures of life will provide the ‘push’ to do so .An unfavorable climate will also provide a strong impetus to travel.
• Pull factors include accessibility and the attractions and amenities of the destination area. The relative cost of the visit is also important, as is the effectiveness of marketing and promotion.

From a geographical point of view tourism consists of three major components which are ; first , the places of origin of tourist ,or generating areas;second,the tourist destinations themselves ,or receiving area and finally the routes travelled between these two sets of locations, or transit routes  (Leiper 1995).These components are set within differing economic ,environmental and social contexts . This simple model is illustrated in figure 3.

• Tourist generating area represent the homes of tourist ,where journeys begin and end .the key issues to examine in tourist generating areas are the features that stimulate demand for the tourism and will include the geographical location of an area as well as its socioeconomic and demographic characteristic .These areas represent the main tourist markets in the world  and naturally enough ,the major marketing functions of the tourist industry are found here such as tour operation, travel retailing.
• Tourist receiving areas attract tourists to stay temporarily and will have features and attractions that may not be found in the generating area. The tourist industry try located in this areas will comprise the attractions, accommodation, retailing and service functions, entertainment and recreation facilities .In our view, tourist destination areas are the most important part of the tourism system, not only attracting the tourist and thus energizing the system but also where the impacts of tourism occur and therefore where the sustainable planning and management of tourism is so important.
• Transit route link these two types of areas and are a key elements in the system as their effectiveness and characteristic shape the volume and direction of tourist flows. Transit route also represent the transportation component of the tourist industry.

There are three different routes from place of permanent residence to tourist route, refer to figure one, tourist can choose their route to the destination, access route mean direct access to the main destination as same as return routes .For recreation route, the tourist make use of the various tourist facilities along the way to the destination .Some of the tourist just use the recreation route for part of the journey, they don’t have main goal or destination. There are three routes for the tourist to come to Penang, there are water, air and land transport but for Batu Ferringhi ,it just can go by land because no one is providing the air and land transport for the tourist.

This notion is developed in Campbell’s (1967) model which portrays different patterns of movement away from an urban centre (Figure 5). Campbell distinguishes between various groups on the basic of the relative importance of the travel and stay components of their trip .for the ‘recreationist’ the recreational activity itself is the main element while for the vacationist the journey as such constitutes the main activity of the trip, with a number of stopovers being made on a round trip away from the city .An intermediate group, the recreational vacationist ,is shown to make side trips from some regional base. According to figure 5, recreational travel is scattered radically from the city whereas ‘vacation’ travel is essentially linear and highway oriented, with ‘recretional vacational ‘travel involving elements of both Campbell’s work. While the concepts of these different types of travel is useful for analyzing tourist flow patterns there are clearly semantic problems in restricting the term ‘tourist’ or ‘vacationist’ to someone whose primary interest is ‘invariably in sightseeing and travelling’.

Source from: redrawn from Campbell (1967)

  In Miossec’s model ( Figure 6), the origin or core is surrounded by four major belts or zones and travel motives ,means and costs change as well ( Sector 1) .In the real world these theoretical  regular concentric zones are subject to modification by ‘position deformation ‘  (low cost of living, favorable climate, historic links) which extend the belts and the ‘negative ‘ ones (essentially political) which compress them (sector 2amd 3).These positive and negative deformation are not independent .More over, in reality a series of core exists giving rise to concurrent spatial demand ( sector 4). Miossec also attempts to incorporate perception of   this space in his model, although the schematic representation of this is not particularly clear .In general .knowledge of destination  declines with distance but there may be certain points of reference or evocative names so that the individual’s mental map of the tourist space has both concentric and sectoral constrains .Miossec also suggests that the quality of the image will depend on the socio-political linguistic environment of the point of departure and arrival.

Source: After Thurot( 1980)

Four broad tourist destination types are identified by Lubdgren in this way (figure 10):

• Centrally located metropolitan destination which have high volume of reciprocal traffic and function both as a generating area and a major destination. These include high order metropolitan centres well integrated into the international and transcontinental transport networks.
• Peripheral urban destination ,which have smaller populations, a less important central place function and which tend to have a net inflow of tourists
• Peripheral rural destinations, which are less nodal in character, depending upon a geographically more extensive environment which draws visitors through a combination of landscape characteristic. As the population of such areas is often small and dispersed, a strong net inflow usually results.
• Natural environment destinations which are usually located at long distances from the generating areas very sparsely populated and often subject to strict management policies.

Chapter 3

3.0 Research methodology

3.1 Introduction

In this chapter, procedures or method used to conduct research will be set up; there are two types of research methodologies, these two types of methodologies are quantitative and qualitative. During the research, quantitative will be used, quantitative research is to determine the relationship between one thing (an independent variable) and another (a dependent or outcome variable) in a population. As for research design, descriptive research will be use in the research, it attempts to describe and explain conditions of the present by using many subjects and questionnaires to fully describe a phenomenon.

3.2 Data collection

3.2.1 Primary data

The primary data are data which are being collected by the researcher for that specific purpose of answering the problem in the research. For this research, questionnaires will be distributed to get information or answer after compile will key in to SPSS (the statistic software). Statistic and graph will be draft.

3.2.2Secondary data

The secondary data is being obtained by the literature study, books and the articles from the internet source.

3.3 Questionnaire method

A questionnaire is defined as a form that people fill out used to obtain demographic and views and interests of those questioned (Brehob 2001).Questionnaires is use in this research to get more information and to get feed back from the people, questionnaire encompassed of a series of questions for the purpose of gathering data or information from potentially a large number of respondents. Below are the advantages of using questionnaire method:

• The responses are gathered in a standardized way, so questionnaires are more objective, certainly more so than interviews.
• Generally it is relatively quick to collect information using a questionnaire
• Potentially information can be collected from a large portion of a group.

These are the few steps taken to design questionnaire for dissertation purpose (dspace.fsktm.um.edu.my):

1. Objectives of the survey are defined
2. Determined the sampling group
3. Designed the questionnaire by creating the questions
4. Administered the questionnaire
5. Results interpretations

3.3.1 Questionnaire design

A well designed questionnaire is important, language and using propel sentence to construct questionnaire must be taken well beside that arrangement of the question also need be in correct flows. The sentence or question using must be easy to understand and the words must be clear. The research questionnaire will be at appendix 1 and 2.

3.3.2 Questions

In designing the questionnaire, the question that inside the survey questionnaire can’t be too complicated and direct question needed to ease the correspondents. On questionnaire consist of 16 questions. The questionnaire of this research contains of part A, Part B, Part C and Part D. The questionnaire divides into sub topic because to let the correspondents more understand about the question and it look more systematic. The questionnaire will be at appendix 1 and 2.

3.3.3 Layout

Layout is very important because first impression when the correspondents see the questionnaire is the formation of the question, the layout must be attractive enough to attract the correspondents. Other than that, the logical of sequence of the question also very important, same kind of question need to group together. (Refer to Appendix 1 and 2)

3.3.4 Questionnaire Distribution

The survey questionnaire were distributed to respondents manually, mean that, a team of people will approach them. For Dissertation minimum of 150 correspondents needed to complete the survey. Those questionnaires will distribute in Batu Ferringhi and Penang hill but not all of the questionnaire distributed will returned with full of participation because some of them not really interested with the topic or maybe they have limited knowledge about the topic and there where no any reward or gift for them after they finish the questionnaire

The objective of distributing questionnaire is to knowing the tourist flows in two Areas, there are Batu Ferringhi and Penang Hill beside that also can know what is the tourist opinion and suggestion.

3.3.5 Software Development Methodology

After compiling all the result from the questionnaire, the result will key in into the SPSS (the statistic software) after that statistic and graph will be drawn out. In the Statistic and graph, it can determine that the number of tourist flow and which country tourist most often come to visit those places.

4.0 Conclusion

This research is discussed about the tourist flows in Batu ferringhi and Penang hill.