| Summary: | Tourism industry is important for economic development of many countries
inclusive Malaysia. Malaysian tourists travelling to local destinations and abroad to
foreign countries; and vice versa Malaysia receives millions of tourists who travels
around the globe for relaxation with families or friends, attending events, working,
and even for medical treatments. Marang district in Terengganu, Malaysia is wellÂ
known for its beautiful islands, craft and traditional activities that attracts both local
and foreign tourist for many years; and there is high potential for Marang to be
upgrade to tourism hub for Terengganu state. Therefore, the objective of this
research is to firstly, determine ifits communities has the belief that tourism hub will
benefits from the positive impacts of tourism inclusive the economic development,
higher standards of living, communication and integration of the societies, cultural
exposure to tourist, infrastructure development and many others. Secondly, this
research will explore the communities' attitude if Marang district is to be upgrade as
the tourism hub. Thirdly, the relationship between the communities' belief and
attitude is analysed. Lastly, investigation is also conducted to determine if there are
any variances in belief and attitude for four communities' groups of local
communities, communities' leaders, business owners, local government and
authorities. The theoretical framework of this research is based on the Theory of
Reasoned Action (TRA) and Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The
research design is quantitative whereby survey using questionnaires was distributed
in the Marang district; and able to collect feedback from 414 respondents. Cluster
and simple random sampling are used to gather information from four different
groups of communities. The findings show that the communities' belief is high, and
their attitude is positive. Using Spearman Coefficient Correlation, it was found that
there is a significant positive relationship between communities' belief and attitude;
but the relationship is not strong. One Way ANOVA reveals that there are no
differences in belief between the four groups; but their attitude has variances between
each other. This research contributes on better understanding of the local
communities' behavioural aspects for government to make better decisions in
development of the tourism industry. This research can further extend to get
feedback from local and foreign tourists and can also be conducted in other parts of
tourist destination in Terengganu or for the whole Malaysia in becoming tourism hub
in near future.
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