The Behaviors of Generation Y Tourists from Asean Countries towards Malaysian Tourism Industry in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The focus of this study is based on the behaviors of generation Y tourists from ASEAN countries towards Malaysian tourism industry in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A quantitative research approach is employed in this research following the positivist assumption with a realist ontology and objectivist epistemology. Data was collected using a probabilistic sampling method, particularly a stratified random sampling technique. The data and information were collected from 250 respondents who are students and workers from ASEAN nations through quantitative method-online questionnaires, and the assumptions were tested by analyzing the behaviors of the tourists through four proposed factors namely Income, Exchange rates, Security and Safety, and Prices to investigate the vulnerability of their behaviors by using SPSS program. The questionnaire comprises of two sections in which the first section focuses on respondents’ demographic profile, and second section concentrates on the behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists through a 5 likert scalequestion form based on four independent variables, Income, Exchange rates, Security and Safety, and Prices and a dependent variablebehaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists. Analysis the data using multiple regression analysis, correlation analysis, ANOVA and coefficient. The outcomes of this study show that the behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists vary remarkably owing to Security and Safety and Prices factors the most where income factor secondly influences the tourists’ behaviors. In spite, exchange rates factor is addressed to have no influence on tourists’ behaviors.


Introduction
Despite, in this latest era of economic transformation, the consecutive endeavor amongst the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member nations has been initiated closely to improve the collaboration and cooperation on tourism industry; it is known to be very few studies that examine the behaviors of tourists from ASEAN countries towards each other's tourism industry.As a result, this study aims to specifically discover the behaviors of ASEAN tourists as leisure travelers towards Malaysian tourism industry in Kuala Lumpur.Plus, this study, followed by research background, problem statement, research question and objectives, scope and significance of the study, will simply focus on the background of ASEAN and the tourists, especially the generation Y from these countries and Malaysian Tourism industry.Finally, the detail sectors of introduction part will be highlighted in this chapter.
Tourism possesses most impacts on sustainable development of the economy and society of Malaysia and it has become the sixth largest contributor for the whole national budgets.Basically, tourism industry's main theme is to be highly customer based which provides great values of customization and experiences to the customers.Apparently, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture has significantly put all efforts in lifting up the growth of tourism sector into a healthier figure of success through aggressive promotional domestic and global campaigns on various media-press and social media.More remarkably, new markets which have been decided to spot on based on intensify promotional activities for the next successful goals are China, India, and especially ASEAN, the closest and nearest neighbor countries.
As a result, the behaviors of ASEAN tourists, especially Generation Y, with their knowledge and sophistication, would be the greatest tool giving a larger picture of their consumption behaviors towards Malaysia's tourism and would provide Malaysia a bigger milestone to identify the specific needs as well as to upgrade its products and services provided specifically in Kuala Lumpur, in order to enrich the quality of tourism industry and log in more customers from ASEAN for economic transformation and national incomes.
Research questions provide a wider scope of understanding for the main aim of this study relatively with any arguments and inquire.These questions will be discussed related to each variable.To seek the answers to these questions, this research will be organized into five (5) sections.Section one captures the introduction, section two discusses review of updated literatures, section three (3) highlights the methodology employed in analyzing empirical data for this research, section four (4) discusses data collection and analysis whilst, section five (5) provides the conclusion and recommendations, as well as the contributions and limitations of the research.

Generation Tourists
Generation Y represents a generation of young and inventive mindset people who are sophisticated and knowledgeable in recent world affairs and innovative technology (Gianna & Pierre, 2010).The challenges of higher education level, technological work, independence, leadership and initiatives have become their favorite tasks and they prefer involving themselves more in the communicative and interactive society (Donna, 2010).Beside a socially active life of work, generation Y has entertained themselves with interesting travelling tours seeking for deeper insightful experience and leisure in which they have distinctive travel attitudes and destination preferences (Uraiporn, 2009).Precisely, Dawn, and Thomas (2013) found that people of Generation Y are trustful, tolerant, and better traveled than their parents while they have relied more on the internet and television for getting the sources of information.Additionally, generation Y desires a vibrant, stylish and cosmopolitan place where they can reenergize themselves (Uraiporn, 2009), which means they prefer a tourist destination which locates in the luxuriously modernized areas with efficient infrastructures and sufficient facilities.

Tourism Industry
Tourism is basically categorized into Mass tourism and Alternative tourism in which Mass tourism refers to a large scale of tourism where groups of travellers seek for pleasures in one particular location such as theme park, resort town, cruises, package vacation and so forth, whereby Alternative tourism refers to the travellers who have organized their own plans to visit any particular destinations for a further exploration on cultures, diversity, food, traditions, environment, and others (Jari, 1992).Therefore, from these activities of exploration, there is always a high expectation from tourists on products and services to fulfill their eagerness of discovering the awaiting mysteries, and this is an indispensable note to the tourism-related agents and the government to further develop the innovation and creativity of the products and services to satisfy not only the tourists but also the stakeholders of the entire tourism industry.

Income
Income is the first and foremost considerable factor for travellers before deciding to go on holidays, which influences the destination choices and length of tourism plans.Most of the time, tourists decide to go for their pleasant tours based on the changes or the sizes of their incomes, meaning the more income is, the more demands of visits will be.For instance, a person with high incomes would plan a long trip to different western countries to experience the most thrilling journey whereby a medium income earner would plan a trip in his own country with few days of visits.A research done by Dr. Martina (2013) showed that an income factor has an influence on the importance of destination selection in Poland and an increase of income will relatively foster destination selection to increase meanwhile Tichindelean (2010) also stated that the consumption behaviors of tourism products vary according to the income levels of the tourists.

Exchange Rates
Exchange rates concern the most for those who are sensitive with currency values and their spending behaviors based on the currency fluctuation since the volatile changes of currency values would importantly influence the decision making of their travelling behaviors.New Zealand research report (2009) found that exchange rates are mostly the reason which can influence the tourists' destination selections and consumption as the changes of currency can result in different outcomes whereas a research done by Kareem and Ajide (2010) on the factors determining tourists destinations in Africa, also showed that international tourists are sensitive to prices through real exchange rates, which requiring African government to stabilize their macro economies.Geoffrey (2010) investigated 286 exchange rate elasticity of demand from 80 empirical studies and the result showed there was a significant influence of exchange rate on international tourism demand.

Security Safety
Security and safety make the first impression of tourism locations.Literally, it is one of human's needs to stay safe and sound from any unanticipated dangers, and if the place is known to be unsafe, travellers will definitely drift their mind, decisions, and behaviors to another alternative safer destination or they may shorten their trip durations and move out immediately; plus, this situation leaves no positive image at all.A research based in the Philippines highlighted the indispensable role of security and safety in Davao city as this matter greatly influences local and international tourists' behaviors; visitors may make a repeat visitation once the destination is safe and secured (Casurao & Rebollo, 2013).Therefore, before considering having a trip to certain destinations, travellers primarily consider security and safety the most as they would like to enjoy their trips at a peak level of enjoyment safely and care freely.Wang (2014) showed that security and safety is the most important consideration and there is a strong relationship between safety and destination selection for travellers before making their trips.

Prices
Price is a psychological factor which influences customers' spending behaviors.Basically, travellers consider making an enjoyable holiday in any particular places based on their affordability, in which price is the main driver.Tourists' behaviors towards tourism are specifically influenced by price and other costs set by tourism-related agents, which determine their spending behaviors and the lengths of holidays eventually.Nguyen, (2013) identified that the travel costs and ground costs related to commodity prices within the destination have influences on tourists' decision making on destination choices.Dana (2009) found in her research that Jordanian tourists' decisions of travelling outbound are determined by the costs of travelling and choosing the cheapest alternative.Particularly, in India, destination image construct influenced by service prices, affordability, infrastructure and facilities, and other factors determine tourists' behaviors towards their consumptions (Rajesh, 2013).
Basically, throughout all journals researched based on independent variables namely Incomes, Exchange rate, Security and Safety, and Prices and dependent variable which is ASEAN generation Y tourists' behaviors, mostly the past researches done above are concentrated on two different perspectives; the behaviors of generation Y tourists associating with characteristics of their holiday plans, and the intensity or the likeliness of the independent variables influence tourists' behaviors and tourism industry.Nevertheless, it seems there is no research whose objective is to investigate and narrow down deeper regarding the behaviors of tourists, especially generation Y, who are from ASEAN countries towards tourism industry in particular destination of a country.As mentioned earlier, the sole aim of this research is to crack down the primary information from generation Y tourists specifically from ASEAN region regarding their behaviors towards Malaysian tourism in Kuala Lumpur and how likely the changes their behaviors would be influenced by the independent variables above.

Research Equation
The research topic "A study on the behaviors of generation Y tourists from ASEAN countries towards Malaysian tourism industry in Kuala Lumpur" is derived from the following equation and this equation is basically a sole source of this research.Different symbols have been used for this equation demonstrating various variables such as BAGYT (Behaviors of ASEAN Generation Y Tourists) which represents a dependent variable (DV), and the four independent variables namely I (Income), ER (Exchange rates), SS (Security and Safety), and P (Prices).Plus, the symbol c represents a constant standard which is known as y-intercept mathematics term of graph and y-intercept also represents BAGYT.Eventually, β is known as the coefficient of data and the X-intercept whereby e indicates the symbol of errors.

Correlation Analysis
Correlation analysis is a statistical method used to measure the strength and direction of an association between two variables (Wang, 2016).Theoretically, there is a relationship between the variables when the significant value is equal or less than 0.05 ( 0.05) and there is no relationship between the variables when the significant value is equal or greater than 0.05 ( 0.05).Plus, the Pearson correlation value also shows the correlation between independent variables and a dependent variable.Data presentation and results of correlation analysis between independent variables such as Income, Exchange rates, Security and safety, and Prices and dependent variable which is Behaviors of ASEAN Generation Y Tourists will be portrayed below.Based on table 3, the result shows that a high level of Income (I) as an independent variable has a moderate correlation with a dependent variable, behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists (BAGYT) since the value of Pearson Correlation is 0.523 and there is a significant relationship between the variables as the significant value is 0.000, which is below 0.05.Table 4 shows the model of summary of the analysis of a dependent variable, behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists (BAGYT) and independent variables, Income (I), Exchange rates (ER), Security and Safety (SS), and Prices (P).

Multiple Regression Analysis
R square basically is a coefficient of determination explained in percentage of response variable variation in Y that is explained by X (Chung, 2010).The value of R square is within 0 to 1; zero value means there is no correlation between two variables and the value of R square is close to 1, means there is a significant relationship between the variables.Therefore, the higher the value of R square is, the more significant the relationship between the variables will be.Based on the result, R square is 0.462 which means there is 46.2% of correlation and a strength of relationship between the four independent variables and a dependent variable of the research.
A Durbin-watson value explains the tests for autocorrelation in the residuals from the regression analysis and the ideal value is between 1-3 (Ngo, 2012).Based on the result, the value of Durbin-watson is 1.835 showing that there is no autocorrelation amongst the residuals (Homocedasticity).The "sig" column describes the importance of the variables.Also, the significance value should be less than 0.0.5.Based on the result above, Exchange rates variable is not significant since p-value is 0.331 except the rest of independent variables such as Income, Security and Safety, and Prices are significant as they hold p-value of 0.001, 0.000, and 0.000 respectively.
Based on coefficients table, VIF (variance inflation factor) is a significant approach used to measure the multicollinearity and evaluate the contribution of estimated variance of regression coefficient towards the standard errors in the regression.Theoretically, the VIF value should be less than 10 so that there is no multicollinearity.From above the table, the summary value of VIF is 5.804 which is lesser than 10, indicating a no multicollinearity.

Discussion of Findings
In this research a quantity analysis has been conducted through an online survey distributed to 250 respondents.The questionnaire comprises of two sections in which the first section focuses on respondents' demographic profile, and second section concentrates on the behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists through a 5 likert scale-question form based on four independent variables, Income, Exchange rates, Security and Safety, and Prices and a dependent variable-behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists.

Result of the Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis
In the first section, the results show that the number of male and female respondents is equivalent, and most of them are single in which the respondents from Cambodia is the highest which is 33 followed by Singapore and The Philippines which is 31, whereby Indonesia is 30, Brunei Darussalam and Thailand is 28, Myanmar is 24 followed by Laos which is 23, and Vietnam is 22. Surprisingly, most of the generation Y tourists from ASEAN area are students from the age between 18-24 years old with the education level of undergraduate program and sources of incomes is a full time job.
In the second section, based on the findings, the pilot test reveals the result of reliability test which is 0.872 indicating the data is reliable for this research.Under Multivariate analysis, Normality test shows a normal distribution of the data through a recalculated Z-score value, a curve graph in the histogram and a normal Q-Q plot graph whereas Linearity test explains the normal distribution of each independent variable and a dependent variable through Scatterplot graphs.Furthermore, the results of Correlation and Multiple linear regression analysis are revealed below.proving that the behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists vary according to three independent variables.As a result, H0 of H1, H3, and H4 are rejected and accepted based on H2.

Implication of the Study
There are different stakeholders benefited from this research such as Malaysian government (Ministry of Tourism and Cultures), tourism related organizations, and future researchers.Firstly, Malaysian government especially the ministry of tourism and cultures will receive real and trustful information regarding the behaviors of generation Y tourists from ASEAN countries.Through this research, the government is able to look through specific issues related to the independent variables and also able to improve Malaysian tourism industry in Kuala Lumpur.Since based on the results from the above analyses, it is surely convenient for the government to particularly concentrate on improving the two most influencing factors-Security and Safety, and Prices since most of the ASEAN generation Y tourists are influenced by these factors based on their destination selection and traveling behaviors towards Kuala Lumpur.Plus, the government can also improve the exchange rate factor which might slightly influence tourists' behaviors since it is also one of the most suitable tools to enhance the national economy and ultimately allow the tourists to enjoy their holiday at most convenient level.
Secondly, tourism related organizations such as hotels, travel agencies, restaurants, local sellers, transport businesses, entertainment, shopping centers, and others who are doing business based in Kuala Lumpur, will receive a trustful information based on the behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists towards Kuala Lumpur.Due to effective results, the tourism related organizations surely are able to consider the independent variables such as security and safety, and prices as the benchmarks as well as the characteristics of the tourists, students with undergraduate program at the age from 18-24 years old for example, as a target before preparing the products and services.For instance, to provide products and services, the tourism related bodies need to set a reasonable price which is in line with the current exchange rates as well as the affordability of the tourists generally based on their income levels.Additionally, the companies can also offer a secured accessibility with convenience and safety when providing products and services, which leads to another level of business advance.Lastly, for future researchers, this study will be one of the reliable references for their research provided their topics are related to this study.It is basically convenient for them to gather the information and take this research as the evidence of past researches to support their statement since investigating a topic related to ASEAN community based on tourism industry seems to have limits in research field.

Recommendation for the Future Research
To study a research related to behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists, future researchers still need more work to carry out.Based on the research, there are four independent variables such as Income, Exchange rates, Security and Safety, and Prices where three independent variables are supported to have influences on behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists and one independent variable which is Exchange rates is found to have no influence on the dependent variable.As a result, future researchers may target more numbers of respondents, especially the respondents whose education level is PhD, those who are divorced, and those who are unemployed, since the larger sample is, the more accurate information and reliable research will be.Additionally, since the secondary data of past researches may contain biasness and unreal information, it is advisable for future researcher to use a qualitative research targeting larger sample to extract the exact and reliable information for his or her research.

Conclusion
The three objectives have been achieve in this research which there are; to investigate the relationship between Income and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists.Second, to investigate the relationship between Security and Safety and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists and final research objective is to investigate the relationship between Prices and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists.
Furthermore, the contribution of this research are to different stakeholders benefits from this research such as Malaysian government (Ministry of Tourism and Cultures), tourism related organizations, and future researchers.Firstly, Malaysian government especially the ministry of tourism and cultures will receive real and trustful information regarding the behaviors of generation Y tourists from ASEAN countries.Through this research, the government is able to look through specific issues related to the independent variables and also able to improve Malaysian tourism industry in Kuala Lumpur.Since based on the results from the above analyses, it is surely convenient for the government to particularly concentrate on improving the two most influencing factors-Security and Safety, and Prices since most of the ASEAN generation Y tourists are influenced by these factors based on their destination selection and traveling behaviors towards Kuala Lumpur.Furthermore, the government can also improve the exchange rate factor which might slightly influence tourists' behaviors since it is also one of the most suitable tools to enhance the national economy and ultimately allow the tourists to enjoy their holiday at most convenient level.
Secondly, tourism related organizations such as hotels, travel agencies, restaurants, local sellers, transport businesses, entertainment, shopping centers, and others who are doing business based in Kuala Lumpur, will receive a trustful information based on the behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists towards Kuala Lumpur.Due to effective results, the tourism related organizations surely are able to consider the independent variables such as security and safety, and prices as the benchmarks as well as the characteristics of the tourists.For instance, to provide products and services, the tourism related bodies need to set a reasonable price which is in line with the current exchange rates as well as the affordability of the tourists generally based on their income levels.Additionally, the companies can also offer a secured accessibility with convenience and safety when providing products and services, which leads to another level of business advance.
Following are the research questions: First, what is the relationship between income and behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists.Secondly, what is the relationship between Exchange rates and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists.Thirdly, what is the relationship between Security and Safety and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists and finally, what is the relationship between Prices and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists?Both significant general and specific objectives of this study will be discussed thoroughly.Following are the main objectives of this research.First, to investigate the relationship between Income and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists.Second, to investigate the relationship between Exchange rates and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists.Third, to investigate the relationship between Security and Safety and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists and final research objective is to investigate the relationship between Prices and Behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists.

Table 3 .
Income and behaviors of ASEAN generation y tourists **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 5
Analysis of Variance) is a method introduced by Ronald Fisher in 1918 to test the hypotheses by analyzing the variance between and within the groups whenever the groups are more than two(Lane, 2009).ANOVA test basically generates the value of F to determine if there are differences of variance between the means of two populations, and if F value is lower than 1, no possibility of statistical significance to happen.From the result above, it indicates that the F-test value is 52.497, with the significance of 0.000.Since the significance is less than 0.05, it portrays a positively significant relationship between a dependent variable and independent variables in this research.

Table 6
indicates the result of regression coefficient of multiple linear regression analysis of a dependent variable, behaviors of ASEAN generation Y tourists (BAGYT).Coefficient table basically determines and analyzes multicollinearity which occurs when the model includes various and correlated variables and it therefore is used by the researcher as well since there are different variables and correlated factors in this study.

Table 8 .
Correlation and multiple linear regression analyses

Table 8
above shows the results of Correlation and Multiple Linear Regression Analyses.Correlation analysis indicates the Pearson Correlation of the dependent variable-Behaviors of ASEAN Generation Y Tourists (BAGYT), and independent variables, Income, Exchange rates, Security and safety, and Prices.BAGYT has a moderate correlation with three independent variables, Income, Security and safety, and Prices, except Exchange rates which have a low correlation.In Multiple Linear Regression Analysis, there are Model Summary, ANOVA, and Coefficient table, in which under model summary, Durbin-Watson value is 1.835 considered as an ideal value of having no autocorrelation amongst the residuals (Homoscedasticity) and R-square value is 46.2% depicting the strength of relationship between the four independent variables and a dependent variable.Under ANOVA table, the value of significance is 0.000 which is ideal since it should be less than 0.005.Specifically, three independent variables, Income, Security and Safety, and Prices are accepted in Coefficient table since the results of significance value are lower than 0.05 except Exchange rates with significance value of 0.331 which means this variable has no influence on the dependent variable.Therefore, it is concluded that all hypotheses, H1, H3, and H4 are accepted except H2