A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Trip Characteristics

Abstract

The increasingly globalized economy has intensified the need to better understand consumers' travel behavior. The knowledge of culture's influence on trip characteristics is of great importance to tourism marketers specifically in selecting appropriate marketing strategies for each target market. The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship of culture to international visitors' trip characteristics by using secondary data from the Hong Kong Omnibus Tourism Survey. The investigation focuses on two groups of international air travelers to Hong Kong with distinctively different cultural backgrounds: Mainland Chinese and Americans. A comparison of demographic and trip characteristics of these two cultural groups is undertaken. The research findings reveal that there are statistically significant differences in the demographic and trip characteristics between these groups. Implications for Hong Kong's international tourism marketing strategies are drawn.