MODELLING INTENTION TO VISIT WORLD MONUMENT FUNDED SITE

Abstract

World Monument Fund (WMF) spent USD 50,000 I preserving historical value in Kampung Cina Kuala Terengganu Malaysia, and this site has been put on the WMF watch list in 1998,2000, and 2002. To support the effort initiated by the WMF, local government and local community has taken various efforts to ensure that the Kampung Cina will become a major tourist attraction in Terengganu and Malaysia itself. With advancement in a networking technology and new style of marketing with electrical tools, this study will try to understand the influence of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and the variables representing the theory of reason action, towards the intention to visit this WMF site. Many studies has been conducted on the effect of eWOM on the intention to visit, but mostly on the world heritage site. A quantitative approach using self-administered questionnaire was applied. Within March and April 2017, questionnaire were distributed among 155 international tourist at this site. Only 123 can be used for testing the model. The result shows that attitude and subjective norm have a positive relationship with the intention to adopt. Meanwhile, the hypothesis for eWOM was not supported. This findings is valuable to the government and also to the tourism community for them to create a better marketing strategy for this site.