Tourist's perception of safety at Gunung Stong State Park, Kelantan Darul Naim

Abstract

This study is about an evaluation of tourist’s safety during mountain climbing in Gunung Stong based on their expectation and perception before and after climbing. The aim of this study is to identify safety level of tourists towards mountain based adventure tourism activity at Gunung Stong State Park. In order to achieve the aim of this study, quantitative approach and descriptive study has been used to carry out tourist’s questionnaires in survey station, Baha’s Camp. Four safety attributes were tested to tourists in order to identify their expectation and perception toward safety in Mount Stong. Their feedback has been analyzed in Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) to know the mean of each attributes. The result show that tour guide, equipment and park management were the important factors to tourist’s safety based on the mean which plotted in different quadrant. In addition, the researcher also had identified the market segments of tourists who climbing Gunung Stong which is beginner climbers, intermediate climbers and expert climbers based on their perception of safety. It shows that different groups of adventure tourists have different level of safety concern during climbing Gunung Stong. Thus, the researcher has proposed several recommendations to improve the safety level in Gunung Stong which are by providing safety training, to conduct regular inspections, to acquire adequate and appropriate insurance coverage and to prepare appropriate safety forms for tourists. Hopefully, these recommendations will help the management to improve the safety in Gunung Stong and help to promote Gunung Stong as safe destination for mountain climbing.