Changing Behavioural of Patterns of Travelers to Urban Ecotourism Sites of Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

This underlying motivation behind this chapter is to examine and understand the changing patterns of travel behaviour of travellers to urban nature attractions of 2010 and 2015 (5 year gap period) in the context of Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia offers a major potential for the growth and development of urban ecotourism given the natural hotspots in both inside and on the peripheries of the city. The results emanating from the descriptive statistics employed in this study demonstrate that changes have occurred in terms of benefits of urban ecotourism, ecotourism activity, source of ecotourism knowledge and in terms of more female ecotourists than male. These results put forth a range of implications from the perspectives of understanding the evolving tourist behaviour in urban spaces and significance of urban eco-travel in Malaysia. In light of challenges and prospects faced in terms of survival of nature-based areas in and around Kuala Lumpur, the findings of the study have been discussed.