TOURIST DESTINATION CHOICE MODELLING DURING COVID-19: CASE STUDY OF THE FIVE INDONESIA’S SUPER PRIORITY DESTINATIONS

• Main Author: Amabella Utari, Beatrice
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/61164
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Tourism is one of the most important economic activities and has become the third most important export category after fuels and chemicals. Indonesia has a rapid growth in tourism from year to year. Seeing the significant growth, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economic in Indonesia had the ambition to make the tourism industry the as core economy of Indonesia. Suddenly, the COVID-19 virus spread worldwide, and tourism is the most affected industry. The period of self-isolation and other government restrictions changes the travel behavior of tourists. The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economic of Indonesia wanted to focus on improving the five of Indonesia's super-priority destinations; Borobudur, Labuan Bajo, Mandalika, Likupang, and Lake Toba, to recover the loss, but on the implementation, the ministry is not focused on the travel demand. This research aims to explore factors that affect Indonesian domestic tourists while choosing the five of Indonesia's super priority destinations during this COVID-19 and propose a recommendation to the tourism stakeholders. Destination attributes such as destination image, experience, price, health and hygiene, government protocols, and accommodation were analyzed along with the tourists' socio-demographic, psychographic lifestyle, and past travel experience using the choice modelling analysis to estimate the probability of Indonesian tourists choosing the destinations. Tourists' psychographic lifestyle was constructed using the factors analysis and K-means cluster analysis to classify the tourist into several mutually exclusive characteristics: The Solo Foodie; The Sports, Culture, and Food Seekers; The Health, Sociable, and Nature Enthusiast. From 259 respondents who lived in Jakarta, the author analyzed Mandalika, Labuan Bajo, and Borobudur are the most selected destinations. Several destination attributes significantly influence the choice, such as Mandalika government protocols, transportation cost, travel time; Labuan Bajo health and hygiene; and Borobudur health and hygiene and destination image. Other than that, the older the tourists and they got married, they will prefer to choose Borobudur; and the higher the monthly income, they will prefer to choose other destinations besides Borobudur. For the psychological factors, the Health Enthusiast, Sports and Culture Seekers, and Nature-lover characteristics influence tourists in choosing Mandalika, Labuan Bajo, Borobudur, and Likupang. The Social and Explorer characteristics influence them in choosing Lake Toba. Thus, the author suggested that the government maintain periodic management controls for the Cleanliness, Health, Safety, Environment Sustainability (CHSE) protocols and collaborate with the tourism service providers to promote the five of Indonesia's super-priority destinations rooted in tourists' interest and the safety guarantees.