INVENTORY OF INSECTS GROUPS IN GUNUNG LEDANG, JOHOR, MALAYSIA

Abstract

The objective of this study is to find out the viability and potential of
insects to be promoted as nature tourism product in Gunung Ledang,
Johor, Malaysia. Gunung Ledang is a tourism site and people visit
Gunung Ledang to enjoy the mountain ambience, trekking and climbing.
To add on to existing tourism packages, a research to study on the
potential of another form of nature-based tourism was carried out;
which is called Entotourism as it focuses on using insects as an
attraction. In this study point count method were used to observed
and record all insects and survey questionnaires to find out whether
entotourism have potential in Gunung Ledang. Presenting, eight
common insects groups are frequently found are: ants, butterflies,
termites, dragonflies, moths, beetles, cicadas and damselflies. This
paper then discussed how tourists perceived insects. A total of 151
visitors responded to the questionnaires and results showed that 90.1%
of tourist found insects as attractive and 88.7% would want to visit
insects in a natural habitat. Meanwhile 83.4% agreed that entotourism  has potential in Gunung Ledang and 86.8% stated that entotourism could attract international tourists to Malaysia. In addition, 60.9% of tourists are interested in entotourism and 72.2% would want to know more about insects. In this research we have shown that entotourism has potential to be developed at Gunung Ledang.