Results

In Kazakhstan the industry of tourism not so long ago has become a high-priority issue, as the citizens got the opportunity to spend their holidays not only within Kazakhstan but somewhere abroad. The main purpose of this study was to find out the most preferred travel destinations of Almaty residents and the factors that influence their choice with regard to the age group. The findings from questionnaire and interview showed that Almaty residents with different variety of age travel both locally and abroad. It was hypothesized that older generation is more likely than younger to spend holidays in Kazakhstan rather than abroad and that accommodation comfort is the main factor that affects their choice. The results were obtained by giving questionnaires to 108 residents of Almaty who are aged from 16 and older in order to examine whether there is connection between the different age groups and destination choice behavior. Moreover, a semi-structured interview was conducted with a manager of Uni Travel agency in order to identify the places where people prefer to have a rest and the most common aspects that impact their choice. The results of the questionnaires will be presented first, followed by the findings from the semi-structured interview.

1.1 Demographic profile

In order to identify the demographic profile of the respondents, questions related to the both age and gender were used. The ages were ranged from 16 to above 50 years. The results showed that 32% of the respondents (n=35) were aged from 16 to 25 years, and 33% (n=36) were aged from 26 to 50 years, and the remaining age group had 34% of the respondents (n=37). As we can see there was almost the same number of the respondents between three different age groups. Equal distribution of the questionnaire forms among youth, adults and elder people was organized not accidentally. It was important to know the age of the respondents in order to see the difference of the travelling preferences between youth, adults and older generation.

Also, one of the questions was recognizing the gender of the respondents. Almost half the sample were both male (53%, n=57) and female (47%, n=51). However, the research was not aimed to find out which travel destination males or females prefer to visit, but to be aware of that there is no sufficient difference between the sexes.

1.2 Travelling profile

The respondents were also asked whether they travel or not, in order to exclude those who do not travel at all. More than nine-tenths (n=100) of the participants of the questionnaire responded that they are travelling and only few people (n=8) do not travel.

In order to get closer to the answer for the major research question, it was decided to gather information about the most regularly selected type of holiday. As can be seen from figure 1, the largest number of respondents (n=39) chose sun holidays followed by the same number of answers toward local holidays (n=18), sightseeing trips (n=18) and nature trips (n=18). Business trips were chosen by 13 people. Surprisingly, two respondents take other types of holiday which were not mentioned in the list of responses.

On travelling companion, it has been found that nearly 60% of Almaty residents (n=63) travel with family. Almost one-fourth responded that they go abroad with friends (23 percent, n=13) and half of remaining 18% of respondents travels alone or with partner/spouse.

One of the main research questions was based on finding out the most popular travel destination among residents of Almaty. Figure 2 provides the general tendency of the respondents’ preferences in regard to vacation destinations. It can be seen from the data in the below mentioned pie chart that the most preferred travel destination is Western Europe (21 percent, n=56), followed by Eastern Europe (18 percent, n=49), America (18 percent, n=48) and Kazakhstan (15 percent, n=40). On average, approximately the same percentage of the respondents prefer Eastern Asia (10 percent, n=26), Western Asia (7 percent, n=20) and Australia (9 percent, n=24). Not surprisingly, only very few respondents (3 percent, n=8) picked Africa as the preferred holiday destination.

1.3 Rating of tourism in Kazakhstan and decision making factors

In order to show the general attitude of Almaty residents toward tourism in Kazakhstan, the respondents were asked to rate its quality. Most of the respondents rated it as adequate (n=34) and good (n=32). Nonetheless, 20 people considered it as poor and, moreover, 5 respondents found it very poor. In the following open-ended question participants of the questionnaire briefly explained why they rated the quality of Kazakhstani tourism exactly like that. Those who responded positively explained their choices saying that Kazakhstan gained its independence only in 1991, thus the industry of tourism has developed quite well for the short period. In addition to this, more than one-third of the respondents assume that sightseeing opportunities play vital role in the country’s tourism development as there are lots of interesting and historical places. On the other hand, nearly 25% of the participants considered low infrastructure as the main reason of Kazakhstan’s tourism poor development.

Some significantly meaningful results were obtained related to the factors that influence Almaty residents’ holiday destination choice. From figure 3, it can be seen that by far the greatest demand is for sightseeing opportunities as a little more than one-fourth of the respondents (23 percent, n=25) found it most important. Approximately 20% of surveyed people indicated both accommodation comfort (n=20) and climate (n=19) as no less significant factors that have an impact on their travel destination choice.

Each person at least once in a life has dreamed about whatever he or she wanted. Every coin has two sides and the place of the dream is not an exception in this case. Hence, the last question was posed to find out the reasons that do not allow Almaty tourists to travel to the place of their dream. The results of this analysis revealed that the biggest reason which prevents people from going to the destination they want is money. Nearly the half of the respondents (46 percent, n=50) indicated money as the main reason. The most striking result to emerge from the data is that 18 people (17 percent) can go to the place of their dream as nothing prevents them from it.

1.4 Tendency

Destination choice behavior is the main issue that is investigated in this research report. It was significant to show the connection of travelling preferences among three age groups: youth, adults, and elder people. The trend seen in figure 4 is that the respondents who were aged from 16 to 25 years and above 50 years are more likely than other age group to visit America and Eastern Europe. The results also showed that Australia, Eastern Asia and Western Europe are highly-demanded travel destinations for those who were aged from 26-50 years. Not surprisingly, very few people from each age group preferred to spend their holidays in Africa. Overall, there was a positive correlation between three age groups as the largest amount of them preferred the same vacation destinations.

Figure 4: Connection between age groups and vacation destinations

Дата добавления: 2015-08-18