TOURIST PERCEPTION OF THE TOURISM PRODUCTS IN MERANGIN GEOPARK, JAMBI, INDONESIA

Abstract

Merangin Geopark, Jambi, Indonesia is one of Indonesian National Geoparks which is on the way of being the member of Global Geopark Network (GGN). In doing so, Merangin Geopark has been being developed as a tourist destination considering that one of the important aspects of Geopark is the tourism development. Therefore, this study was aimed to analyze the tourists’ perception of the Geopark’s tourism products. By using a qualitative approach, this study collected data from 80 respondents (as sample) through questionnaires, coupled with interviews and observation.

The analysis results show that out of 4 aspects of tourism products, only attraction which gets the highest positive perception percentage (82%) meaning that the attractions are interesting enough and deserved to satisfy the visitors. Tourist organizations/managers get positive perception of 58%, which indicates that visitors are quite satisfied, but they need some improvement. Meanwhile, amenities and accessibility have more negative perception which indicates that the government should pay more attention on these two aspects.