Effect of Tourist Characteristic, Marine Tourism Demand, and Number of Visits to the Value Perceptions and Willingness to Pay to Environmental Marine Tourism in Ambon City

Abstract

Development of tourism in this era must balance between supply and demand aspects. The tendency of policy makers pay more attention to aspects of supply than demand aspect will lead to the development of tourist products and services do not get good results. This research examined the relationship between marine tourism demand, characteristics and number of visits to the level of perception and willingness to pay (WTP) for a tourists on a marine tourism destination in Ambon city. Respondents come from overseas tourists, domestic and local, amounting to 140 people. The analysis was performed descriptively and further using SEM analysis Amos 19.00 with path analysis. The analysis shows the close relationship between marine tourism demand variables, characteristics, and the number of tourist visits to the perception of value and WTP for tourists. Variable marine tourism demand when connected directly to the tourists perception and WTP tends to correlate negatively than when using a variable as a variable number of tourist visits as a intervening variables. Instead tourists characteristic variables are positively correlated directly or indirectly with the perception of value and WTP for tourists. It is hoped that with this study will motivate tourism policy makers and local communities to be concerned and studied aspects of perception, WTP, marine tourism demand, the number of tourist visits and the characteristics that turned out to be related to each other.