Destination images of ecotourism in Maluku: A marketing perspective

Abstract

The tourism industry has developed very rapidly in the last decade. Various types of tourism grow according to the wishes and preferences of tourists. The current kind of tourist segmentation is very diverse, so it makes multiple destinations with specific markets. One of them is ecotourism. Ecotourism develops and combines three aspects of tourism: natural sustainability, community empowerment, and increasing environmental awareness. This research discusses ecotourism from a different perspective, that is, marketing. Ecotourism is seen as a product that must be marketed by promoting marketing concepts. So far, we rarely encounter organizing tourist events in enhancing the image of ecotourism destinations because they conflict with natural sustainability. Several marketing concepts are needed to strengthen the economic aspect, including social media marketing and tourism events. The purpose of the whole idea is aimed at improving the image of the destination. This research uses quantitative analysis with Partial Least Square analysis tools. Respondents in this study amounted to 100 tourists. R-Square 0.45 shows that social media marketing and tourist events are also important and can build a destination image of an ecotourism destination.