Tourism Destination Appraisal

It is of extreme importance for tourism providers to understand the factors that influence the selection of destination. In tourism management, importance-performance analysis (IPA) has been used as part of quality management. Visitors to Khao Lak—a tourism destination victim of Tsunami in 2004, were surveyed over a one-month period during May 2007. For most of the destination attributes, satisfaction was lower than importance, suggesting management attention is needed, especially, ‘activities and events’and ‘shopping’ attributes. The validity of this approach to appraisal is considered along with the study’s implications for evaluative research in general.