| Summary: | Tourism industry has experienced a massive development in Malaysia. Statistics
revealed that national tourism industry was at the ixth place among the major
contributors to the national economy contributing an average of 12.9% to 14.3% of
the National Gross Domestic Product (NGDP) from 2012 to 2018. However, it still
indicates that there is a lack of initiative to further boost and improve tow-ism industry
through enhancing the number of international arrivals to Malaysia. In addition,
nowadays, international tourists are easily exposed to risk such as safety and health
which has become one of the global issues throughout the world. Therefore, this
matter should be observed thoroughly as the declining number of international
arrivals may affect the tourism sector as among the major sources to national
economy. Besides, numbers of factors were identified as variables which were able to
influence the international tourists' intention to travel as most of the tourism products
were intangible products; products which were difficult to compare head-to-head.
Therefore, there is a significant reason to conduct this study which is to investigate
various contributing factors which intluence international tourists' intention to travel
to Malaysia so that the sustainability of the national economy can be promoted. This
research aimed to examine the effect of past travel experience, culture, information
search, personality, and risk perception on international tourists' intention to trave I. In
addition, this research also aimed to investigate the role of risk perception as mediator
which helps to further clarify the relationship between the factors influencing
international tourists' intention to travel to Malaysia. A quantitative research was
conducted in order to achieve the research objectives. Questionnaires were used as the
instrument for data collection method. Whereas, convenience sampling technique was
chosen in which 600 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents and 488
questionnaires were returned. The collected data were processed and analysed through
a computer software which was Statistical Package for Social Science version 21
(SPSS 21.0) and Structural Equation Modeling - Analysis of Moment Structure
version 21. (SEM-AMOS 21.0). Physical, social, and time risks had been found as
risks that international tourists were most likely to encounter while traveling to
Malaysia instead of other dimensions of risk. The findings indicated that past travel
experience, culture, information search, personality, and risk perception had
influenced the international tourists' intention to travel. Besides, culture and
information search were found to have a significant effect on international tourists'
perception on risks. Past travel experience and personality were found to not have a
significant effect on risk perception. However, the finding found that no mediation
effect exist between the factors influencing international tourists' intention to travel to
Malaysia; which is contrast to findings by previous researchers. Therefore, this
finding suggests varies significant factors which contribute to this result. The result
reported in the research is beneficial in assisting the tourism industry in which it can
be used as preparation especially for the key players in the industry to comprehend
how tourist individual factors influence the tourism destination choice. In addition,
this research can contribute to the existing literatures as a reference in terms of theory
and tourism management in gaining a better understanding on tourists' behaviour.
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