Tourist Satisfaction as the Key to Destination Survival in Pahang

The aim of this study is to measure tourist's satisfaction among international and domestic visitors while embarking for holiday in Pahang, Malaysia. Holiday Satisfaction model (HOLSAT) was utilized in this study in order to determine the gap between tourist's expectations and experiences based on 47 positive and negative attributes that were grouped into six categories namely; accessibility, accommodation, tourist amenities, tourist activities, food/meal and tourism attractions. The result was drawn from questionnaire survey of 389 international visitors and 259 domestic visitors who visited Pahang in 2010. The data were analyzed using matrices which shown the mean scores of expectations, the mean score of experience and the mean of difference between experience and expectation scores. The mean scores of expectation were then plotted against experience in a two dimensional map for positive and negative attributes. The t-test was performed to identify the significant result of each attributes at 1:1000 levels. The findings provide Pahang's tourism stakeholders with insights about the level of satisfactions among domestic tourists and call for better improvements strategies for future tourism development in Pahang. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.