Rural Tourism Destination Competitiveness of Kubah National Park in Sarawak: Tourists' Perspective

This paper discusses the lack of attention to tourists' perceptions in tourism initiatives within Malaysia's rural settings, particularly when designing competitive development and management paradigms. The study proposes a competitive model to evaluate key factors influencing destination competitiveness. The factors examined include natural resources, range of activities, destination accessibility, and local communities. Data was collected from 103 respondents at Kubah National Park through a convenience sampling technique, and SmartPLS 2.0 (M3) was used for path modeling and bootstrapping analysis. The results showed that natural resources, range of activities, and accessibility significantly influence destination competitiveness, while local communities did not significantly impact it. The findings are valuable for tourism authorities in selecting appropriate tourism development paradigms for rural areas.