Investigating the perception of tourists for developing bus service as an attractive mode for Tourism: A case study of Kerala, India

Inferior service quality of the transportation facilities is a major deterrent to choose emerging countries as tourist destinations despite having incredible tourism potential. Realizing the need for providing quality services satisfying the expectations of tourists, the study presents an approach to identify key intervention areas for developing bus service as an attractive mode for tourism. The policy intervention areas are identified based on a fuzzy based importance-satisfaction analysis (fuzzy-ISA) giving due consideration to the factor structure of the tourists and management scheme of service. The study also develops an econometric Generalized Cost (GC) model for quantifying the benefits due to the improvement of bus service. A route-based sensitivity analysis was conducted, and it was instrumental in quantifying the potential benefits due to the improvement of qualitative attributes such as an information, safety and security, and crowding level. Considering the financial constraints of emerging countries, the study identifies short-term and long-term objectives for augmenting the quality of bus service in the context of tourism. The study also proposes the introduction of premium buses for serving tourists locations and a detailed route-based investigation and design based on the insights (intervention areas and GC model) derived from the present work. While the findings are case-specific, the methodology and approach would be instrumental for improving service in other countries irrespective of the prevailing socio-demographics.