ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICE QUALITY FOR MALAYSIAN MARINE PARKS: TOURIST SATISFACTION COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

This research intends to evaluate the importance and satisfaction level of tourists in regard to the environmental service quality offered by marine parks, namely Tioman Island Marine Park (TIMP), Redang Island Marine Park (RIMP), and Payar Island Marine Park (PIMP). The measurement of importance and satisfaction is based on mean analysis of both the importance mean (estimated/expected mean) and perceived mean (satisfaction mean). The difference between these mean values signifies gap value. In explaining the existence of difference, the gap analysis in this research is assisted by the paired t-test analysis. If the result is significant, this indicates that the tourists get what they expected from their visits. However, if the result is not significant, it must be ascertained as to whether their visits fulfilled their expectations or otherwise. Research results show that all tourists express the importance of and satisfaction towards the environmental service quality offered by all the three marine parks, i.e. TIMP, RIMP and PIMP. Overall, all the marine parks are important and satisfying. Nonetheless, there is a difference between the mean values in the gap analysis and the paired t-test. Gap analysis shows that the mean values for most of the environmental service quality under study are negative for TIMP, but positive for RIMP, PIMP and for the overall marine parks. This indicates that when the three marine parks are evaluated separately, tourist satisfaction differs. However, in general, most of the tourists are satisfied with the environmental services offered. The tourist overall satisfaction index shows that the highest satisfaction goes to RIMP at 86.8 percent, followed by TIMP at 70.3 percent and PIMP at 67.0 percent.