Tourism Images of Highland Destinations in Pahang, Malaysia

The highland is one of the tourism destinations for people to travel to, other than the beach, wilderness, historical site, lake, city and others. Each of these destinations has their own images that differentiate them from other destinations. The value of understanding the images people have of a destination is important since it affects the individual’s subjective perception and subsequent behaviour and destination choice. In order to investigate the image of highland destinations, a self-administered survey was used to collect data from 1200 respondents both from local and international tourists visiting Cameron Highlands, Fraser’s Hill and Genting Highlands during November and December 2007 Based on the findings, six factors of the tourism image for these highlands as perceived by the tourists were identified namely; 1) “service and infrastructure”, 2) “local attractions and facilities”, 3) “general mood and vacation atmosphere”, 4) “leisure and recreational activities”, 5) “natural surroundings”, and 6) “nature and family-oriented”. All those factors were significantly different among the three highlands except for one factor, namely “services and infrastructures”. Genting Highlands strong points are “services and infrastructures” and “leisure and recreational activities” factors. Meanwhile, Fraser’s Hill came out strongly in terms of “general mood and vacation atmosphere”, “natural surroundings”, and “nature and family-oriented”. Cameron Highlands, on the other hand, had a strong point of “local attractions and facilities” factor. Moreover, the results of the study found significant relationship between tourists’ destination choice and the five image factors which were; 1) “local attractions and facilities”, 2) “general mood and vacation atmosphere”, 3) “leisure and recreational activities”, 4) “natural surroundings” and 5) “nature and family-oriented”. The findings of the study provided theoretical and practical implications for the tourism authorities of Malaysia specifically in the highland area in order to guide them in formulating more precise future marketing strategies

Local and foreign tourists' image of highland tourism destinations in Peninsular Malaysia

This study was conducted with the purpose of identifying and comparing the images of highland destinations in Malaysia, held by both local and foreign tourists. Data from 897 respondents, comprising of both local and foreign tourists who had visited the three highlands (Cameron Highlands, Fraser’s Hill and Genting Highlands), were collected using a stratified random sampling technique through a questionnaire survey. Forty-one destination attributes were included in the factors, which were analysed and compared between the local and foreign tourists, using the Independent-sample T-test. Based on the results, six image factors were identified for the highland destinations, and these were labelled as “accessibility and services”, “local attractions and facilities”, “general mood and vacation atmosphere”, “leisure and recreational activities”, “natural surroundings”, as well as “nature and family-oriented.” The present study also found significant difference in the images held by the local and foreign tourists for the factors on “accessibility and services”, “local attractions and facilities”, “leisure and recreational activities”, as well as “natural surroundings.” The findings suggested that the local tourists had a higher perceived image than the foreigners towards the highland destinations in Peninsular Malaysia. The findings of the study also provided theoretical and practical implications for the tourism authorities of Malaysia, particularly in enhancing the development of the tourism industry for the highland destinations

Tourism images for three Highland destinations in Malaysia as perceived by tourists.

This paper focuses on comparing the destination image among the three highlands in Malaysia (Cameron Highlands, Fraser's Hill and Genting Highlands) as perceived by the tourists. A self-administered survey was used to collect data from 1200 respondents intercepted by using stratified sampling technique. Forty-one image attributes were factor analysed and compared among the three highlands using Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). This study managed to identify 6 images for the three destinations and subsequently labelled as "accessibility and services", "local attractions and facilities", "general mood and vacation atmosphere", "leisure and recreational activities", "natural surroundings", and "nature heritage and ambience". Results also indicated several images which are unique to each individual destination. Genting Highlands was perceived to be synonymous with "leisure and recreational activities", Fraser's Hill with "general mood and vacation atmosphere" and Cameron Highlands with "local attractions and facilities". The findings of the study provided theoretical and practical implications for the tourism, authorities of Malaysia in order to manage and promote their destinations in a meaningful way

Destination image: an overview and summary of selected research (1974–2008)

Destination image area have been studied in over than three decades and have contributed to the management and marketing purposes in many tourism field. Sixty destination image journals beginning from 1974 to 2008 were collected in order to summarise and provide a useful overview to destination image researchers specifically and tourism researchers generally

Pineapple leaves juice characterization for microbial growth inhibition

Since pineapple leaves are one of the lavishly organic waste materials which contain phenolic compounds with antimicrobial properties, it was desired to gain deeper knowledge on its potential as microbial growth inhibitor (MGI). In this research, the pineapple leaves were extracted using an electrical sugarcane pressing machine to acquire the pineapple leaves juice (PLJ). The PLJ was autoclaved at 121 °C for 15 min. Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time of flight mass spectroscopy (UPLC-QTOF-MS) analysis was used to examined the existence of different bioactive components in PLJ. Based on the molecular mass and its fragmentation pattern, the identification of the phenolic compounds was confirmed. From the characterization of PLJ using UPLC-QTOF-MS, seven types of the phenolic compound has been identified namely Octahydrocurcumin, Meliadanoside A, Kukoamine A, Stilbostemin D, Agrimol C, Feralolide and Methyl-5-O-caffeoylquinate. The effect of microbial inhibition time on the colony forming unit (CFU) between the mixtures of PLJ and microbe was studied. CFU/mL decreased with increasing microbial inhibition time from 0 to 1.50 h. Meanwhile, CFU/mL was increased again after increasing the microbial inhibition period from 1.50 to 3 h. This suggests that 1.50 h was necessary for the process of microbial growth inhibition. This research shows that pineapple leaves could be manipulated and used as an MGI agent as useful sources of natural products. Furthermore, it can become one of the cheaper and greener MGI alternatives compared to available synthetic antimicrobial agent