IPA on the 4Ps of Marketing Mix for Developing Marine Leisure Tourism in South Korea

Most countries with shorelines want to promote marine leisure tourism, as the tourism sector is evaluated as producing a wide range of socioeconomic impacts. Both central and regional governments in South Korea have shown major interest and made significant investments to activate marine leisure tourism as a future growth engine. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze the importance and performance or satisfaction of the 4Ps of marketing for marine leisure tourism and then suggest activation strategies for the further development of marine leisure tourism from a consumer demand perspective. The study conducted a survey of 387 visitors to an international boat show co-hosted by both levels of government. The questionnaire consisted of 4 marketing mix factors and 16 items each on the importance and performance scales. The factors and items were developed from previous research and then validated through content validity by experts and construct validity through exploratory factor analysis and use of Cronbach’s α. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, t-tests and importance–performance analysis (IPA), using SPSS 18.0. The following findings were derived. First, all the mean scores from the importance scale were significantly higher than those from the performance scale. Second, ‘Program Safety’ had the highest mean score among the 16 items on the importance scale, followed by ‘Convenience of Facilities,’ ‘Accessibility,’ ‘Program Expertise’ and ‘Equipment Purchase & Rental Cost.’ Third, ‘Program Expertise’ had the highest mean score among the 16 items on the performance scale, followed by ‘Program Safety,’ ‘Convenience of Facilities,’ ‘Connectedness to Tourist Sites’ and ‘Social Media Promotion.’ Finally, IPA shows that the first quadrant includes ‘Program Safety,’ ‘Convenience of Facilities,’ ‘Program Expertise’ and ‘Program Variety,’ while the second quadrant includes ‘Accessibility,’ ‘Equipment Purchase & Rental Cost’ and ‘Program Usage Cost.’ The third quadrant covers ‘Convenience Facilities Cost,’ ‘Program Differentiation’ and ‘Food & Beverage Cost,’ while the fourth quadrant contains ‘Public Media Promotion,’ ‘Amenities Facilities Offer,’ ‘Social Media Promotion,’ ‘Promotion Event,’ ‘Connectedness to Tourist Attractions’ and ‘PR Material and Brochure.’ In conclusion, the aforementioned findings indicate that both governments and businesses need to concentrate on factors and items that are positioned in the second quadrant, which indicates higher importance levels and lower performance levels, as the stakeholders have limited soft and hard resources available for promoting marine leisure tourism.