Analysis of Tourism Destination Image Attributes: a Case of Batu City, Indonesia

Abstrak

Before tourists make a decision to visit some destination, they will look about image of destination, because that is a key factor for them. Therefore, important to investigates many attributes that contribute to development of positive image of a particularly tourist destination so that stakeholders could maintain and improve the image continuously, hence keep attracting tourists to visit the destination. Batu city is one of city in Indonesia in which there are many prominent tourist destinations. It has been enjoying a large number of tourists visit. In this research we studied many attributes that contribute to current positive image of the Batu city that attract tourists to visit. The attributes were identified and constructed from previous research. We used a sample consisting of 240 respondents who are tourists just visit to Batu city. We collected the data using questionnaires and then we analyse by implementing Explanatory Factor Analysis and ANOVA. Empirically, the result of this research shows that there are four groups (factors) of attributes that describe positive image perception of Batu city as a tourist destination: (1) tourist attraction, (2) quality of location, (3) local citizens and (4) supporting factors. Demographically, there is no different perception on the image attributes, except that tourists from different places of origin perceive Batu city image differently.