Clusters of Potential Tourists in Community-Based Rural Tourism and Their Online Behavior Using Hierarchical Clustering

Community-based tourism (CBT) has developed tremendously recently, particularly in Indonesia. Tourism Village is one of the examples of community-based tourism in rural environments (rural tourism). The managers need to attract the key target market. This study aims to cluster the potential tourists of rural tourism environment in Purwakarta, West Java, Indonesia, based on their activity preferences and explore their online behavior. An online survey was conducted on 183 potential tourists, and the data set was analyzed using hierarchical clustering in Phyton. The study found three clusters, which are: “Only Relax,” “Relax and Shopping,” and “Want Everything” groups, and shows that the various rural environmental activity cluster differs in terms of socio-demographics as well as how they utilized the internet before, during, and after taking a trip. These distinctions have managerial implications for designing tourism products and show the potential for activity segmentation in Community-based rural tourism environment.