Journal of Tourism & Hospitality
Open Access

Encounter Experiences among Tourists at Attraction Sites – An Application of Social Contact Theory

Hsuan Hsuan Chang^{* *}Correspondence: Hsuan Hsuan Chang, Department of Leisure and Recration Administration, Ming Chuan University, China, Tel: 886-3-3507001, Email:

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Introduction

Tourism development with the concept of environmental preservation is an important issue in the tourism industry today. This is because the issue of global warming which recently became increasingly the attention of various parties. Discussions on the area have involved many academics, government and private companies. Tourism and the creative economy play an important role in supporting the development, especially the improvement of the economic level of the community, especially the community in the area that has tourism potential. Tourism development is inseparable from the government's aim to empower the community in achieving the welfare of life. Tourism development is now more directed to the concept of educational tourism. This is because educational tourism activities are expected to be a means of socializing and fostering a sense of pride and love for culture and nation.

Indonesia is an archipelago consisting of various ethnic groups with various cultures. One of these cultural assets is weaving. Weaving is a technique in making cloth manually, which is part of cultural representations with high artistic value. However, this advantage did not develop well due to human resource constraints in its management. Human resources in tourism and hospitality are strategic issues that will determine the quality of achievement of national development goals and also in improving Indonesia's global competitiveness (Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, 2012).

Tourism development with the development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is a program that is expected to be used in poverty alleviation. SMEs in Indonesia are proven to have a very important role in the national economy, especially in the aspect of increasing employment opportunities, income distribution, rural economic development, and the increasing of non-oil and gas exports. The government strongly supports the development of SMEs through various policies that have been issued. This study aims to develop the tourist village of weaving as a new tourist destination. This is based on weaving as a typical product of the region, so this research is expected to form a model of educational tourism center development by growing the spirit of green-entrepreneurship. The Creation of this educational tourism village is a major weapon to increase the attractiveness and new destinations for tourism.

Atmosudiro et al. in his research on the potential and opportunities of traditional Lombok weaving development suggest that weaving is found in almost all villages in Lombok. It further argued that through targeted and planned management, weaving is a potential asset in creating jobs. In addition, weaving culture is also a potential resource in tourism development. As Flecther points out that the trend of the twenty-first century tourism industry is cultural tourism [1]. In addition, the development of this woven cultural potential aims to empower communities in protecting and preserving weaving. The development of this model of weaving tourism village is based on the main motivation of tourists in relation to culture is to gain knowledge and experience about culture, customs, daily life of the local community. Related to this condition, the cultural tourism based is not only aimed to gain economic advantage but also aim to protect and preserve the culture which is the wealth of a region. Initial observations have been made in this study in order to map four important aspects related to the development of educational tourism village, namely: (a) organizational aspects, showing that the scope of business and the scale of business on average is still individual with the scale of business in the business category (b) the financial aspect, which shows result that the community has no financial foundation as well as adequate financial management knowledge, (c) production aspect, indicates the existence of raw material problem and the result of very simple equipment usage, and (d) the marketing aspect shows that the marketing area has good potential but not yet well developed. This shows that there is a problem in the development of the model of tourist village of weaving as an educational destination.

Based on the above description, the basic problem in developing the model of this woven tourist village are: (a) the absence of a clear format of weaving development, quality standards of weaving, and toughness of entrepreneurship orientation to the community to support tourism potential, (b) the absence of entrepreneurship orientation, so the development of the model of tourist village of weaving as an alternative new tourist destination with the concept of educational tourism becomes difficult. This condition will increase the level of difficulty in developing creative business entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship orientation with the vision of green entrepreneurship.

The first step in developing the model of weaving village with the concept of this educational tourism is to build a local community that have the orientation of entrepreneurship which focuses on environmental conservation or can be called green-entrepreneurship orientation, that is the development of the spirit of business actors who spirited by community and environmental servant or community service agencies who have a spirit of entrepreneur with environmental insight. The next step, the questionnaire is distributed to map the needs in modeling. Questionnaires are distributed in two stages, to determine whether the model is applied as needed. Thus the question in this study research is how is the model development of tourist village of weaving as a new destination of tourism through the development of spirit of green-entrepreneurship.

Literature Review

Community empowerment is the key to develop community welfare and is also a prerequisite for sustainable tourism development. The model development of the weaving tourist village with the concept of educational tourism is done by empowering the surrounding community to improve their welfare but on the other hand remain responsible for preserving nature. This becomes an urgent need in the development of educational tourism village.

Entrepreneurship orientation

The entrepreneurship orientation can be said as the internal capability that is built by the organization. It is used in order to realize a sustainable competitive advantage. The entrepreneurship orientation plays an important role in generating creative and innovative new products [2]. The form of orientation is trying to be first in product innovation in the market, taking risks and taking proactive action to defeat competitors [3]. Lumpkin and Dess present two dimensions in entrepreneurship orientation, autonomy as the independence to bring in and apply new ideas and efforts, and competitive aggressiveness as a challenging attitude to competitors who try to enter or improve their position in the same industry [4]. This indicates that the capability development of a new product in facing the threat of risk and failure, because the advantages of a company cannot be separated from the development of creative and innovative products that successfully developed, so it will have a high competitiveness. The company's ability to continue to innovate on its products will keep the product in accordance with the wishes and needs of customers [5]. Such conditions will encourage the development of innovation in order to lead to sustainable conditions.

Entrepreneurship is essentially the nature, character and character of a person who has the ability to realize innovative ideas into the real world creatively [6]. The essence of entrepreneurship is an ability to create something new and different (ability to create a new and different thing). Entrepreneurial actors are called entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are business people who can grasp opportunities of new business by taking risks and turning their ideas into reality. The current business concept generally starts to emphasize the concept of environmentally friendly. This is because of the issue of global warming, so the business concept must be in line with the concept of environmentally friendly. This then became known as ecopreneurship, later known as green-entrepreneurship [7]. Schaltegger defines it as a company that provides environmentally friendly products and services [8]. While Isaak argued that green-entrepreneurship is a business that has a commitment to maintain sustainability [9]. The concept of green-entrepreneurship is a relatively new concept, providing new opportunities for entrepreneurs to remain concerned about the environment. Thus it can be said that a green-entrepreneur is someone who starts a business by making or offering a product, service, or a process that is environmentally sustainable.

Educational tourism village

The attractiveness of ecotourism objectives can be defined as the extent to which ecotourism destinations meet the expectations of travelers in terms of dimensions such as recreational opportunities in ecotourism area, food and accommodation, cultural riches, natural beauty, and other facilities [10]. The appeal according to Gunn, is the energy power of the tourism system [11]. The attraction is the perceived ability of the goal to benefit the individual. From the literature review above, researcher tries to propose a model of community empowerment in supporting the development of sustainable ecotourism to provide benefits for improving the welfare of the community but still in the corridor of caring the environment preservation. Tourism trends are sought today is sustainable tourism, or in other terms is sustainable tourism, green-tourism, and eco-tourism. The program development of tourism destinations should be able to provide an opportunity for the parties to jointly commit themselves in the role of developing balanced destinations, harmonious, directed and focused in order to realize a sustainable tourism destination, including in this case the development of the waving tourism village with the concept of educational tourism.

Village is usually identical with the natural potential that is managed into a complete tour package. The complete tour package is a package that offers certain tour programs in one package. This research will use the pattern of ecotourism adoption and tourism village into educational tourism village which is the development of green-tourism village as an educational tour package and development laboratory of innovative weaving with the support of community empowerment. Through the educational tourism village is expected to combine the nature potential and the potential of local specialty products in this case is weaving.

Research Methods

This study uses primary data, in which the researchers distributed questionnaires. The questionnaire was distributed in two stages. The first stage is before various training and development of entrepreneurial orientation and the second stage after it is carried out. Respondents in this study are community groups who have joined a group of weaving craftsmen in Lombok, one of the provincial cities in Indonesia. The number of respondents in this study were 40 weaving craftsmen. The questionnaire was filled in independently by respondents, and the research team also conducted in-depth interviews with respondents about entrepreneurial orientation that focused on environmental preservation.

Data analysis is performed using multiple regression methods, where data must meet normal criteria and be free of classical assumptions. The results of the study are presented in a descriptive statistical analysis, which includes a description of the results before and after the various trainings in the context of developing entrepreneurial orientation. In addition, an analysis of the influence of the independent variable was conducted, which included 4 aspects of entrepreneurial orientation as the dependent variable.

In addition, this study also uses Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to validate appropriate models based on field observations and expert judgment in validating the development of models prior to field trials. This research activity is done several stages. The research phase focuses on determining the model of educational tourism development strategy. The next phase is a trial to run educational tourism development model. The steps of model determination in this study are presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The research process.

The next stage tested the influence of the four aspects of entrepreneurship orientation. This is to know which aspects have an influence on the development of entrepreneurship orientation. Then next tested the influence of the four aspects of entrepreneurship orientation. This is to know which aspects have an influence on the development of entrepreneurship orientation. The research concept is presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The research concept.

The research equation model developed in this research is as follows:

Results

The results of this study obtained through the method of interviewing and the distribution of questionnaires. As it has been stated that the purpose of this research is to know the potential development of weaving tourism village with the concept of educational tourism, therefore in order to answer the problem of the absence of clear format of the weaving development, quality standards of weaving, and toughness of entrepreneurship orientation in the community in order to support tourism potential; the questions raised to the respondents include four aspects, namely: organizational aspects, financial aspects, production aspects, and marketing aspects. In addition to interviews in order to find out how to build a community as a creative business entrepreneur, and entrepreneurship orientation that has a vision of green-entrepreneurship.

Table 1 below describe the comparison of average statistical descriptions of the four aspects in the first stage questionnaire which was distributed before the training, with the second stage questionnaire which was distributed after the training.

Table 1: Statistical descriptions on average.

On the distribution questionnaire of the first stage, the results obtained from these four aspects are: (a) viewed from the financial aspect, the results of the descriptive test indicate the value below the average, which indicates that there is no good understanding of the capital adequacy to be used and its management, (b) from the production aspect, the descriptive test results indicate that the above-average value, which indicates the standard has been fulfilled both in terms of quantity, quality and marketing., (c) viewed from the marketing aspect, the research results show the value above the average, which indicates that the production has a good potential to be marketed globally, in addition, supported by the number of requests, (d) in terms of organizational aspects, descriptive test results show above-average scores, indicating an understanding of the goals and objectives of the business, the right form of business to apply, and the organizational structure in its business,

The second stage questionnaire distribution result is the improvement of finance aspect, production aspect, and marketing aspect. From the financial aspect, the descriptive test results indicate an increase in value, although still below the average. As for the aspects of production and marketing that have previously been shown above the average value, in this second phase also shows an increased value. This suggests that the implementation of the development model through training has been effective. This indicates that the application of the development model through the training has been effective. In the organizational aspect there is no change of value either before or after the training.

The next test is done to examine the influence of these four aspects on entrepreneurship orientation. Testing is done by using regression method, with result as follows on Table 2.

Table 2: The main test result.

The result of influence test shows that marketing aspect has positive significant value. This suggests that the marketing aspect is the most powerful aspect of influencing entrepreneurship orientation. This result consistent with previous research [12]. The entrepreneurship orientation increases when the product they produce has a good market share. This condition is a major support in the development of weaving village model. Briefly it can be concluded that when the results of the weaving that they produce can be accepted by the market well, the people's desire to expand their production increases, so hopefully will be able to encourage the formation of Edu-tourism of weaving village [13,14].

Meanwhile, based on deep interviews with respondents, the orientation of entrepreneurship that focuses on environmental conservation or can be called green-entrepreneurship orientation, showed above average value. This shows that the respondent in general have a creative soul in developing its business, in addition the community also has a good green-entrepreneurship orientation. This condition can support the purpose of this research that is to develop the model of weaving tourist village with the concept of educational tourism. Related to such conditions, it required intensive stimulation to maintain and enhance the entrepreneurship orientation that is oriented to greenentrepreneurship. The stimulation can be done through various training in production, marketing, and accounting or procurement stimulation of activities supporting equipment.

Conclusion

Based on a review of the four aspects of the project, it can be concluded that training can improve understanding in all three aspects, namely financial aspect, production aspect, marketing aspect. Increasing the value of these three aspects indicates that training applied can be used as a model in developing the tourist village of weaving as the village of Edu-tourism. But related to the financial aspect, which still shows below average value, it indicates the need for good capital prepared from the understanding of financial management and capital availability.

The next test which is the main test in this research, is to examine the effect of financial, marketing, production, and organization aspects on the entrepreneurship orientation. The results shows that the marketing aspect has a significant influence in improving entrepreneurship orientation. Meanwhile, based on interviews with respondents, entrepreneurship orientation and greenentrepreneurship spirit, showed above average value. This shows that the company must be creative in developing its business. This study focuses on only one area, thus having limitations in generalizing the results of the research. Further research can be done simultaneously in several areas, so that the test results are closer to the actual conditions.

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