Zeitschrift für Tourismusforschung und Gastgewerbe

Foreigners’ Satisfaction on the Country’s Rail Services and Its Impact on Their Stay in Malaysia

Gudelia C. Saporna, Ryan A. Claveria and Smitha Geetha

Foreigners’ Satisfaction on the Country’s Rail Services and Its Impact on Their Stay in Malaysia

One of the factors looked into by a tourist or investor is the accessibility of transportation facilities at the destination. A country which has all the means of transportation has a competitive advantage. Thus, governments invest in transportation particularly on rail transit since it attracts more investments and tourists as well. Malaysia is one of the many countries which give emphasis on the role of rail transit in its development plan. Rail-based transit is a necessity for modern cities like Kuala Lumpur (KL) due to its burgeoning population and number of tourist arrivals. Since the Draft Structure Plan Kuala Lumpur 2020 envisions turning KL into a world class city, the study is very timely. Moreover, there has been no specific study on the impact of rail services in Kuala Lumpur. It is in this context that the researchers delve into assessing the satisfaction of the foreigners on the rail services and its impact in terms of their stay in Malaysia. The researchers made use of 130 randomly selected foreigners as their respondents. The results of the study showed that the present status of the rail services influenced the level of satisfaction of the foreigners on the rail transport. Likewise, foreigners’ satisfaction with the services of KTM and Monorail has positive impact to them in terms of their stay in Malaysia.