Success Index for Promoting Malaysian Homestay Programmes Based in Multi Criteria Analysis

Abstract

A Malaysian Homestay Programme (HP) is a type of accommodation that offers tourists experiences related to cultural activities and allows interaction with the local community. Unfortunately, some of the HPs have not been performing well in tandem with the growth of the tourism industry. There are a number of challenges faced in operating HPs; many HPs have not been performing as well as the other successful HPs. The tourists are more inclined to stay at certain popular homestays. This motivates us to investigate and identify the differences in HPs’ successes by developing a suitable multicriteria model based on pre-identified criteria. The developed HP success model leads to the establishment of the success index where the ranking of the HPs is performed. Initially, three models were studied. All models were developed using simple weighted average (SWA) method embedding different sets of weights for the criteria. These weights for the respective criteria were obtained using rank order centroid (ROC), Modified Pairwise Comparison (MPC) and Average Weight methods, separately. Based on the different success indices developed, expert opinions were sought to compare and select the best index which represents a more realistic homestay ranking. The results in terms of indices show that homestay rankings among the 26 HPs vary except for certain ranking positions. Subsequently, based on the success indices generated, the HPs are classified into three different performance groups, i.e., poor, good and excellent. It is evidenced that the SWA is an applicable method to determine the performance and ranking of HPs based on the respective success indices. Eventually, the proposed model can be as well used as a guide to improve the homestay performance.