Resources Confirmation for Tourism Destinations Marketing Efforts Using PLS-MGA: The Moderating Impact of Semirural and Rural Tourism Destination

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The impressive work has been done here, especially empirical one. However, I am not convinced by the authors' flow of argumentation when they try to make a connection between the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic situation and their research. Generally, I understand the authors' point and thus do not need any more explanation. I insist that the authors should present more literature shreds of evidence for the way you linked the destination components you measured with the COVID-19 or even crisis management activities of tourist destinations. The list of measures the authors applied lacks of such vital point as sanitary and hygiene issues, social distancing regulations in destination, epidemiological information, ICT tools, etc. If it is impossible to do so, I will not link the research with the post-COVID activities as it is just a misuse.

For now, this link is weak or even deceptive, so must be treated as the assumption with no clear evidence, which does not comply with the academic rigour of reasoning. One can conclude that the authors want to get a free COVID-19 ride to get published and cited. This opinion is fuelled by contextual intercalations such "Prior to COVID-19" at the beginnings of the paragraphs which do not deal with the pandemic situation. Moreover, COVID-19 is mentioned only with the introduction and the conclusion parts.

I would also not so confident with suggesting such significant expressions as "to fill the literature and theoretical gaps", "one of the first [study]", in such a typical case study research, i.e. with a combination with such narrow context as "investigating both the hard and soft measures in a single framework and rural and semirural tourism destinations in the Asian context". I am convinced that every researcher could find their niche to fill up. Still, our duty is to discover why and how our studies can contribute to the broader body of research, e.g. destination marketing, visitor's perception of marketing destination components or rural destination attractiveness.

Literature review seems to be superficial, definition-focused and thus not reliable. As a result, it hardly supports the next parts of the paper. For example, the Stakeholder Theory chapter (2.1.) refers to the listing of basic definitions and somewhat introduces a reader to the theoretical framework of the study, despite the authors claim so. It does not show a strong relationship with the destination marketing issues the paper deals with. Do the authors need it as the theoretical framework? It is useful to destination management, i.e. inter–, and intra– organisational issues, less to destination marketing, where visitors are consumers having a significant impact on value creation. I would encourage the authors to rethink the theoretical basis of the research. Chapter 2.2 is a one-paragraph-long outlook of truisms on destination marketing, instead of discussing marketing methods and tools dedicated or even most often used in rural destinations. Chapter 2.3 should present the comprehensive table exhibiting the list of most often / most relevant hard and soft components of rural tourism destinations, based on the more systematic literature review. Finally, chapter 2.4 should be moved to the front as the other chapters and even the whole paper deal with (semi)rural tourism destinations.
Moreover, sometimes the authors reasoning is hard to agree with. Just one example, but there is much more. "Past studies have envisaged that identifying tourists' experiences and preferences are important as tourists' experiences and preferences are useful for rural tourism development." Does it not refer to all types of destinations or tourism, not only rural? I think a reader needs a more thoughtful explanation of the specific of rural tourism destinations.

Having read the literature part, I learned that the authors did not identify any 'theoretical gaps' to fill, as they promised in the introduction part.

I would encourage the actors to draw a more in-depth outlook of the research area and two destinations so a reader would learn the specific of the case study.

The authors should decide whether the paper deals with tourist satisfaction, tourism destination attractiveness, tourism destination development, tourism destination marketing or tourism destination competitiveness. All these concepts and perspectives are all mixed. I know they use the term 'destination marketing efforts', but in what context and what this means? This term is not conceptualised, so it is hard, or even impossible, to assess whether the hypotheses are correctly designed. Did the respondents know what marketing efforts were made in the research area? Some appear to be too general or even obvious. The authors should be aware of that. There is nothing new in the paper.

Methodology. The questionnaire survey and PLS-SEM were adopted, so I believe that all the technical issues are correctly done in the result section as it seems to be done according to relatively simple and strict rules conducted by the quantitative data analysis programme. It is all about the statistics which does its job here. Nevertheless, the sample size is not impressive, taking into account the division between semirural and rural attractions. Still, the vagueness of the relationships between the variables in the hypotheses does not allow to discuss the merits of the results. I am not surprised that so few of them were found positive. Could the authors explain in what way tourism infrastructure can lead to better destination marketing efforts? How do respondents can have opinions on that? I would ask similar questions concerning other hypotheses.

Conclusions are weak and far-fetched as they discuss the reality (COVID-19), which was not a subject of the research. I understand the connection of the results with the pandemic, but—according to the academic regime—they are another hypothesis which was not tested by the authors. I hope they stick to the results in the conclusion part. It also does not discuss the limitations of the study.

Author Response

Dear Prof/Dr, 

Thank you for your comments. Enclosed herewith our responses to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

"The study highlights the importance of destination appeal (e.g., natural, cultural, and heritage) components as these variables are found to be the most concerned by tourists visiting semirural and rural tourism destinations of Sarawak" - In my opinion, this study cannot be generalized, for at least two reasons: firstly, it is a research in two unrepresentative destinations, and secondly, the sample is small. It can be presented as a case study or as a pilot study, from which hypotheses can be launched that should be further investigated in a larger study.

My suggestion would be related to a slight modification of the abstract and the conclusions, in the way of those mentioned above.

Author Response

Dear Prof/Dr,

Greetings.

Thank you for the comment.

A slight modification and paragraphs are added to the respective section based on your comments. Please find attached the file for the details of the amendment made.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Sound and well designed research; you might consider extend the conclusions though.

Author Response

Dear Prof/Dr,

Greetings.

Thank you for the comment.

A paragraph added to extend the conclusions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I want to thank the authors for their response.

Having read the revision, I think the authors did a good job in improving the paper. However, I insist one thing is still to be done. The title should be changed to the one the authors proposed in response to my review, i.e. "Resources confirmation for rural tourism destination marketing efforts using PLS-MGA: The moderating impact of semirural and rural tourism destination." COVID-19 in the title is a misuse towards potential readers. However, please consider removing "rural" in the first part, and add 's' at the very end of the title.

Author Response

Dear Prof/Dr, 

Greetings. 

Thank you for your valuable suggestion. Enclosed herewith our responses to your comments.

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf