Factors affecting on tourists’ buying behavior of Ceylon Tea
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Date
2015
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Worldwide tea production and consumption have increased over the past decades. According to
largest
producer of tea in the world (Sri Lanka Tea Board 2011). However, Sri Lanka still continues to retain
its position as the main source of orthodox black tea in the world with the image of Ceylon tea
enhanced by its unique specialty character.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is one of very attractive destinations among the tourists all over the world. Sri
Lanka Tourism has boomed to a new milestone of one million arrivals in 2012, which is an all-time
high figure in the history of the country (Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority 2012). Ceylon
tea attracted a whole new group of customers who were traditionally non-customers in the industry.
Times are fast changing, and the people are no longer looking for the cheapest beverages. They are
moving away from low quality tea to a quality product. With this background Ceylon tea is being
popular among tourists coming to Sri Lanka.
The local value added tea market is led by multinational players and small holders. All of these brands
cater to low and middle income category consumers, who purchase tea for value for money. In
addition to these players, there are plenty of small time cottage tea players who sell unbranded/loose
tea (Prematunga 2009). Merely a few brands are targeting this consumer segment currently. Such
brands also have no idea about tourists buying behavior of Ceylon tea.
Consumer buying behavior has been always of great interest to marketers. The knowledge of
consumer behavior helps the marketer to understand how consumers think, feel and select from
alternatives like products and brands and how the consumers are influenced by their environment,
the reference groups, family, and salespersons and so on. The consumer’s buying behavior is
influenced by many factors. Most of these factors are uncontrollable and beyond the hands of
marketers. An important marketing implication is that there is a growing demand to understand
tourists’ buying behavior in Sri Lanka. Particularly in the context of Ceylon tea this is sort of
significant. Understanding the tourists’ buying behavior of Ceylon tea is truly significant to the
increment of sales and it functions as an indirect communication tool as well. However, despite its
obvious importance, there appears to be a serious lack of formal understanding of touris ts’ buying
behavior by both academics and practitioners. Thus, there is an immediate need of systematic
research and scientific understanding of this topic.
Methodology
Data were collected through a survey by giving a structured questionnaire to 160 tourists who bought
Ceylon tea from three tea centers located in Kandy district. Judgment sampling technique was used
to select Kandy as the location of the study since it is one of the major tourist destinations in Sri
Lanka. Further, Kandy is known as the most famous city among tourist for Ceylon tea. Among all
the identified tea outlets in Kandy district, four tea centers were selected using random sample
method. Data was collected from consumers on the basis of first come, first served (FCFS).
Primary data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire among the tourist consumers
of Ceylon tea. The questionnaire was consisted of three sections. Section 01 was consisted questions
regarding demographic variables such as country, gender, age, education level and number of family
members. These questions helped to express a simple overview of the sample.
Section 02 was consisted 23 questions regarding independent variables which assume to be affected
for tourists’ buying behavior of Ceylon tea. These questions prepared for gathering data about
Product factors, Motivational factors, Promotional factors, Legal factors, Travelling factors,
Awareness and attitudes of Ceylon tea and past experience with Ceylon tea. All those questions were
created based on Five Point Likert Scale in order to identify how these predicted factors affect to
Ceylon tea buying behavior. The Likert scale was ranging from strongly agree (SA) to strongly
disagree (SD).
Section 03 was consisted only one question regarding the amount spending for Ceylon tea by tourist
consumers. This question prepared for gathering data about how much money they had spent for
Ceylon tea during the journey.
Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20 software and Microsoft excel 2013 software
version. Descriptive statistical techniques were used to discover and summarize the attributes of the
sample and it was provided descriptive information such as mean, mode, median and standard
deviation of the studied sample. Correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis revealed that
how predicted factors effect on tourists’ buying behavior of Ceylon Tea.
Description
Keywords
Agriculture, Export Agriculture, Tourism Industry, Tea Industrials, Tea Technology