Predominant Factors That Influence Foreign Tourists In Choosing Their Preference Destinations In Bali

Abstract

Tourism Industry is one of the most important sector on Indonesian's economy. This sector is capable of providing Government's revenue, especially with an increase of number of tourist to visit a certain tourist destination. Indonesia in this case, have a choice of many tourist destinations, one of many amongst the favorite destination is Bali. Bali is known as a safe destination to visit, therefore the percentage of tourists from all over the world who visited the island continue to rise. According to consumer's behavior theory there are different types of factors that can stimulate consumer's decision making process, these factors may come from external and/or internal influences. When it comes to travel, tourist's individual behavior plays the most important factor that would influence their decision in choosing travel destination. Therefore, a study was prepared to determine traveler's preferences and motivation in choosing Bali as their holiday's destination. This research was conducted in Bali at four (4) different outbound tour operators. Primary Data was gathered through a set of questioners that was given to 204 foreign tourists as the respondent. Research methods used were regression analysis and factor analysis using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 17. The study helps to learn on the factors that influence consumers when purchasing a product, using variables such as: Psychology factors, motivation, needs, personality, behavioral, social, economy and demographic. Respondents were asked to scale (likert scale) from 1-5 when asked on their agreement level for each statement from 33 variables. Findings has shown that psychology is the main internal factors and atmosphere is the main external factors that influences traveler's on choosing Bali as the travel destination. In comparison to both factors, the internal factors such as psychology, motivation, needs, personality and behavioral are a more dominant factors. On the contrary, this study has found the real understanding of traveler's vacation preferences, motivations, lifestyle and style of vacation affecting the number of visits to Bali.