Port Selection Factors and Attractiveness: The Service Providers' Perspective

Abstract

Through undertaking a likert-style questionnaire survey towards ports located in five Asian and Latin American countries, this paper studies the major attributes in determining port attractiveness from the perspective of service suppliers. By comparing the survey results with the results undertaken from an earlier survey on service users, i.e., shipping lines (Ng, 2006), special attention was paid on whether the perception from service suppliers and users were conflicting each other. It is believed that this paper has provided constructive insight on port attractiveness, as well as a springboard for further research on port competition.