The perceived value of a scuba diving experience

Abstract

Tourists today are more value conscious, which creates challenges for tourism products to keep up with what tourists want and how they perceive certain experiences. Perceived tourism value can be seen as the value that tourists experience and can be defined from separate perspectives, such as money, quality, benefits, and social aspects. The purpose of this study is to determine the perceived value of a scuba diving experience. A survey was conducted at Sodwana Bay, where 402 divers participated by means of stratified sampling. The factor analysis revealed five values, namely perceived emotional value, perceived risk value, perceived functional value, perceived social value, and perceived epistemic value. This insight can assist role players in the marine environment to adapt their scuba diving product where needed and can also assist in the improvement of diver satisfaction, the diving experience, and marketing initiatives.