A Study on UX Factors of Tourists at En-ooru, a Popular Eco-tourism Destination in Wayanad of Kerala

Abstract

Eco-tourism is a prominent branch within tourism studies, deserving close attention given its potential to attract visitors from across the world and to generate income for the local economy. Designing effective marketing strategies that inform and motivate tourists to visit eco-tourism destinations requires a clear understanding of the factors that genuinely shape visitor satisfaction. This article investigates the user experience (UX) factors relevant to eco-tourism, using En-ooru, a tribal heritage village and eco-tourism project situated in the Wayanad district of Kerala and promoted by the Government of Kerala, as the empirical setting. The study has two objectives: first, to examine tourists' experience at En-ooru across a range of factors, and second, to assess visitors' overall UX and to compare the relative contribution of these factors to it. Relevant literature was reviewed to identify existing trends in the field, and primary data were collected from 100 visitors through a structured questionnaire administered on a purposive sampling basis. Descriptive analysis, one-way ANOVA, and multiple regression were used to analyse the data. The findings indicate that, among the factors examined, experience with the tribal huts and with the food cuisines available at En-ooru are the only two with a statistically significant association with visitors' overall experience, and that visitors' ratings differ significantly across the various factors assessed. Given the cross-sectional, single-site nature of the sample, these findings should be read as patterns observed among the 100 respondents studied rather than as generalisable claims about eco-tourism visitors as a whole.