Descripción Textual de los Casos de Uso del Sistema

Tourism demand studies significantly help park authorities to enhance park visitors’

experience and satisfaction. By knowing the visitors’ characteristics, preferences and feedback on the existing services, the park authority is able to implement appropriate

strategies to tackle to visitor demand in terms of quality and type of the facilities and activities. In Kinabalu Park, no visitor-feedback form is made available to the visitors by Sabah Parks to rate their overall experience in the park at the end of their visit. As for climbing activities, climbers are asked verbally by the park staff at the operation counter, where they obtain their climbing certificate, whether they would like to remark on their climb. On the other hand, SSL distribute a questionnaire form to the resort guests to obtain their feedback on their stay in Kinabalu Park. Nevertheless, the questions only deal with the quality of the accommodation and eating facilities in the park, and do not include the profile of visitors, e.g., nationality, age group, gender and length of stay.

The author was informed during an interview with the personnel of the A&M division that SSL was supposed to provide information on the visitor profile to Sabah Parks as part of the terms and conditions of the privatization program. Despite several written reminders sent to SSL by the division, there was no indication that SSL intended to forward information to the authority.

5.6 Conclusions

Presented in this chapter is the park visitor satisfaction level on the tourism facilities and activities provided in Kinabalu Park and how the interactions between the park management and different types of goods and services influence the satisfaction level.

Overall, the visitor satisfaction level in Kinabalu Park was above average. Only a minority of the respondents were disappointed with their stay in the park. In addition, nearly 80% of the respondents expressed their intention to return to the park in the future. The positive result of the willingness to pay more survey confirms that the visitor satisfaction in Kinabalu Park was above average. On the one hand, this shows that the substantial efforts by the park management to tackle visitor needs and thus enhance the economic impact of tourism in the park have shown encouraging results.

On the other hand, the relatively high visitor satisfaction in Kinabalu Park is only a general recognition that the park management is meeting visitor demands. Specifically, the results show that there were areas that scored high and contributed to the overall positive experience of the visitors in the park, but that there were also areas that performed below visitor expectations. The park management has to do more in order to

Enhancing visitor satisfaction

maintain the economic impact of tourism in Kinabalu Park in the long term by giving attention to these areas. To summarize, the areas that require immediate improvement are the knowledge-based aspects. These include the educational elements of all activities as well as the quality of nature and mountain guiding pertaining to English proficiency, communication skills, knowledge as well as information provided.

Activities offered to visitors to Kinabalu Park were evaluated based on five attributes namely ‘easy accessibility’, ‘attractiveness’, ‘cleanliness’ and

‘information/educational value’. The attribute ‘information and educational value’

scored lower than the other attributes. The lower score for ‘information and educational value’ indicates the possibility that the visitors to Kinabalu Park expect a more informative and educational experience than that offered in the park.

Similar results were obtained for nature guiding and mountain guiding.

Education-related elements, i.e., ‘information provided by guide’, ‘guide’s knowledge in answering questions’, ‘English proficiency’, scored relatively low. The indication that English proficiency of a guide had a direct influence on the ‘information provided by guide’ and ‘guide’s knowledge in answering questions’ needs to receive the immediate attention of Sabah Parks. In terms of mountain guiding, relatively lower scores were given by foreign climbers than by domestic climbers, especially in terms of

‘English proficiency’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘communication skills’. Some of the key factors were possibly related to the expensive climbing permit fee paid by the foreigners, who expected the quality of experience to be on par with the price they paid.

The demand for educational and communicative experience can also be seen from the educational background of the visitors and the purpose of their visits to Kinabalu Park. Furthermore, the wish for Sabah Parks to play a pro-active role in providing information during mountain climbing was closely related to the background of the climbers, who were mostly foreign climbers on non-package tours. This demand was not well understood by Sabah Parks. These needs would have been understood if a tourism demand study had been carried out by Sabah Parks. The absence of channels for the visitors to convey feedback on their overall experience is a major shortcoming in the park. Besides, the fact that SSL has not cooperated with Sabah Parks by providing profiles of resort guests has further thwarted the efforts to react to the needs of the visitors to the park.

Sabah Parks also overlooked the importance of providing basic facilities such as shelters, toilets and walkways. The survey results reveal that Sabah Parks was unable to meet the moderate expectations of the park visitors regarding these basic facilities.

On the positive side, the facilities (e.g., accommodation, restaurants and souvenir shops) in Kinabalu Park were generally rated as expected. Specifically, accommodation facilities were rated above average both in terms of quality of service and pricing. As recognized by the repeat visitors, there were significant improvements in the quality of accommodation after the introduction of the privatization program. The survey results of willingness to pay more of the park visitors also indicate that there is room for enhancing the economic impacts of tourism to Kinabalu Park if Sabah Parks is able to provide evidence and transparency on how the money is spent in the park or even within the Sabah Parks system. This is because while the domestic visitors preferred to see their additional financial contributions go into visitor facilities and activities, the foreign visitors were in favor of extra contributions benefiting biodiversity conservation and the local communities.

In Kinabalu Park, most of the tourism activities provided are made available to the park visitors at a fee. While some of them are still available for others after they have been offered to an individual (toll goods), some are not (private goods). Examples of toll goods in Kinabalu Park include the botanical garden, butterfly farm, Nepenthes Rajah trail and tropical garden. Mountain climbing, slide shows and canopy walkway are examples of private goods. The communication skills, English proficiency and guide’s knowledge offered to the climbers as part of the mountain guiding service are also private services. Facilities such as accommodation and restaurants are private goods and services, whereas toilets, sitting area and walkways are public services.

Information and educational values are examples of public services.

The park visitors’ demand for education-related elements (e.g., information and educational values, the ability of the mountain and nature guides to provide knowledge and to answer questions) was not well understood by Sabah Parks. This is mainly due to the fact that Sabah Parks did not establish an evaluation or monitoring system by conducting questionnaire surveys or obtaining feedback from the visitors regarding their experience in the park. These analysis results demonstrate the general weakness that exists within the public sector in dealing with private goods. The absence of restraints

Enhancing visitor satisfaction

(e.g., Sabah Parks will never go bankrupt but will survive even if it is running at a loss) has contributed to the lack of interest in understanding the market demand. On the other hand, the lack of evaluation and monitoring of the visitors’ expectations also mean that the willingness of visitors to pay more for some public services (i.e., nature conservation and benefits for the local communities) was not recognized and the worth of the public services (knowledge), which could have also further enhanced the value of private goods and services in the park, was overlooked.

In contrast, the fact that SSL, driven by its profit nature, obtained feedback from the resort guests and the positive feedback of the repeat visitors on the accommodation facilities reveals the ability of SSL (private sector) in supplying the facilities to meet the market demand - the expectation of the park visitors in terms of acceptable quality of services at an affordable price. This confirms that the private sector is relatively more capable in providing private goods than the public sector (i.e., improved quality of facilities after private sector took over the management and operation). Moreover, it is also rational that SSL does not provide the profiles of resort guests to Sabah Parks, because SSL perceives neither ‘incentive’ (e.g., would get paid or boost its business performance) nor ‘restraint’ (e.g., no sanction taken by Sabah Parks on SSL) by not doing so.