Factors affecting on tourists’ buying behavior of Ceylon Tea

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.