The Effect of Marketing Mix Quality on Customer Perceived Values to the Images of Well-Known Recreational Destinations in Sukabumi Region

摘要

The aim of the research was to find out how marketing mix efforts in promoting thematic of recreation destinations in Sukabumi region (affected values of the customer on the images of the destinations). Furthermore, it is interested to evaluate the influence of marketing image and mix applied on the scope of tourists responds to the images. The explored dimensions of the images are included: perceived uniqueness of image as a whole, perceived uniqueness of attractions and experiences, perceived quality of the environment (cleanness), as well as the dimensions of the marketing mix: perceived quality of products (available facilities, safety measure, etc.), perceived price of services, and perceived manner of sales for the promotion (politeness, friendliness, and multicultural openness, etc.). The research is a descriptive-mixed method research category with the procedure of data collecting activities and the final presentation technique descriptively by surveyed customer perceived values of the tourist parks themes. It was also benchmarking the survey results with findings of similar research previously conducted. The findings revealed how positive image on a destination become stronger or weaker due to marketing mix attributes experienced by the visiting tourist. The strong image (on uniqueness, pleasant, price attributes, etc.) produces high perceived values of the destinations. In opposite, less positive or even negative image (on cleanness, available facility, safety, etc.) make low perceived values of the destinations. In case the local governments and related stakeholders do not improve the facility conditions, cleanness, and road safety of those five thematic tourism destinations, the tourist's images on Sukabumi tourism destinations can fade away or eroded in competing with another region. Referred to previous researches, the analysis can be regarded as the first research on evaluating marketing mix implemented to affect tourist perception on the image of tourist destination zones in Sukabumi region.