Adventurous Arctic encounters? Exploring Chinese adventure tourism

Understanding Chinese tourist shopping in Australia: a social practice perspective

Self-driving travel has been a popular choice for Chinese tourists for more than a decade, and with the rapid expansion of outbound travel, many Chinese tourists now participate in self-driving tours overseas. Differing from its Western counterpart, the Chinese self-driving market is nevertheless underresearched. This chapter presents the characteristics of young Chinese outbound travellers and their motivations and experiences in undertaking self-driving tours. Using in-depth interviews and focus groups, this study targeted Chinese outbound travellers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to explore the motivations and experiences of self-driving tourists. A qualitative content analysis was conducted, and the results show that most of the self-driving tourists are sophisticated travellers who are interested in unique landscapes and local lifestyles, among other tourist activities. Young Chinese self-drive travellers have shown motivations and behaviours that differ from those of the older generation of Chinese tourists and their Western counterparts. The findings have implications for destination marketers and tour operators who are serving the growing Chinese tourist market.

Summary Since Chinese outbound tourism currently represents the largest outbound tourist market, the opportunities for tourism of Montenegro in the Chinese tourist market should be certainly examined. The aim of this paper is to analyze the relevant data about Chinese tourists who are visiting Montenegro: their specific demographic characteristics, travel habits and main motivation, but also to identify the possible ways to increase the number of Chinese tourists in Montenegro in future. For the purpose of this paper, two years long empirical research was conducted among Chinese tourists in Montenegro with the help of questionnaire. Several interviews with representatives of tourism sector in Montenegro were carried out as well. The authors have concluded that only after the total adjustment of Montenegro tourist offer to the Chinese tourists’ preferences, Montenegro could be completely ready for intensive acceptance of Chinese tourists. What’s more, in order to attract larger number of Chinese tourists, the effective marketing policy of Montenegro as a tourist destination should be created in that direction and as well the specialized tourism promotion at the Chinese market should be carried out.

By connecting among them the data concerning (1) China as a travel destination for domestic tourists, (2) the Chinese net population and (3) print and online travel writing, this article aims at exploring the potential of Chinese travel blogs as literary and political texts. In order to do so, the analysis draws upon, on one hand, Richard Strassberg’s study about classic Chinese travel writing – from Middle Ages to the 19th century – and, on the other hand, Michel Hockx’s findings concerning contemporary Chinese Internet literature. According to Strassberg, classic Chinese travel writing privileged a passive representation of the experience, focusing on either nature or the celebration of the country’s status quo. On his part, Hockx’s study suggests that, more strongly than the publishing sector, the Web constitutes a space where Chinese writers can renegotiate political and ethical boundaries. This article proposes the close reading of three contemporary Chinese travel books and travel blogs and implements it with interviews with authors and bloggers. The analysis shows that print travelogues are very politicized, thus departing sensibly from the tradition of the genre. By contrast, travel blogs, despite being published online, are chiefly focused on lights topics or the appreciation of the country’s natural beauties, more in line (paradoxically) with classic texts.

Over the recent decades, China has built an economic foundation enabling its citizens to travel. During this time, the numbers of tourists from the People’s Republic of China increased by several times, and therefore the Chinese tourists have a great role on the global stage. China’s progressive, superlarge outbound market is becoming appealing to other countries. The Chinese tourist is different from the standard «Western» tourist, and thus their thinking and preferences should be understood better. A literary analysis of scientific researches of the Chinese tourism demonstrated the interest to this topic growing since the 2010s. The majority of researchers, practitioners in tourism, and representatives of state administrations and specialists of professional tourism institutions agree that the Chinese tourism market has a hyper-potential and is developing hyper-dynamically. However, if the scientific reviews of the last decade focused only on the research dealing with geography where the Chinese travel and dynamics of the Chinese outbound tourism, modern works contain a deep understanding of the behavior and experience of the Chinese tourists and highlight the negative aspects of Chinese mass tourism. The objective of this study was analyzing the Chinese outbound market, its features and opportunities to increase the flow of Chinese tourists. For those purposes, it is necessary to carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Chinese outbound tourist market; to form a portrait of the average Chinese tourist; identify negative and positive features of the Chinese mass tourism. That is why the paper analyzed the position of the Chinese outbound tourism on the global market based on such indicators as the number of outbound tourists and tourists’ expenditures. The paper presents the geography of tourist visits by the Chinese and the share of Chinese tourists in the structure of tourists of the world’s most visited destination cities. The portrait of the average Chinese tourist has been specified in terms of age, gender, education, income level, average spend receipt, length of stay during the trip, motives and reasons for the visit. We analyzed the influence of the Chinese mass tourism. The results of the research can be used in practice by tourism enterprises when designing marketing projects aimed at the Chinese consumer, as well as when forming new products for tourists from the PRC.

The Chinese holiday market has become very important to the New Zealand tourism industry. Understanding Chinese tourists' needs is therefore crucial for the future development of this market. Existing research suggests that for Chinese visitors, like other market segments, the natural landscape has a strong influence over the decision to travel to New Zealand. There is an emerging concern, however, that the country's tourism product must diversify, and attention is now shifting to utilize the appeal of culture and heritage attractions in New Zealand, particularly Māori cultural products. This article reports on research into Chinese tourists' motivations, expectations, and behavior with respect to their travel in New Zealand. Particular emphasis is given to an exploration of the relative importance of nature and culture to these Chinese tourists. Findings suggest that the Chinese market may be particularly suited to a culturally oriented experience of New Zealand, but one based less on Māori culture as it is often portrayed to tourists (e.g., cultural performances, or experiencing a hangi), and more on the opportunities to learn about Māori stories and legends as part of visiting natural environments. The implications of these findings for shaping the Chinese tourist gaze in New Zealand are discussed.

The development of tourism in China is a relatively recent and rapidly evolving phenomenon This study focusses on one expanding and diversifying group, that of young Chinese independent or self-organised travellers. Despite some initial studies, relatively little is known about this rapidly growing group of travellers, many of whom share the characteristics of both backpackers and independent travellers. Even less is known about the gazes of professional hosts on this emerging group of Chinese tourists. This PhD’s consideration of ‘gazing’ and ‘performing’, aims to provide new conceptual and empirical understandings into young Chinese independent travellers and professional hosts. Young independent Chinese travellers are increasingly visiting Pai, a small town in northern Thailand, in part influenced by the popularity of the 2009 Thai movie ‘Pai in Love’. Drawing upon participant observation and in-depth interviews of Chinese travellers and Thai hosts, the findings reveal that tourist photography is central to Chinese tourism in Pai, with many performances revolving around the creation of online self-identities of prosperity and globalisation, love and alternative social identities. Most host performances were restricted to host-guest service encounters and were often habitual, highly scripted and shaped by cultural values. Gaze wise, many Chinese gazes were shallow and highly influenced by media and cinematic representations of Thailand. In contrast, Thai professional host gazes were often rigorous and penetrating, and for those hosts who had no real meaningful contact with tourists, highly influenced by their corporeal proximity to the embodied actions of Chinese travellers. This is the first study to consider both performing and gazing alongside each other, and along with consideration of affordances, provides new insights into young Chinese tourism consumption, particularly the extent to which it is influenced by social media, online guides and place ‘myths’. This study also attempts to challenge some of the ethnocentric basis of tourism theory by seeking to challenge some of the modernist and Western assumptions that still theoretically dominate.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to take a holistic view of the body of knowledge of the second wave of Chinese outbound tourists so as to develop a strategic framework towards positioning Greece in the China outbound tourism market. Design/methodology/approach – The survey adopted a perspective from knowledge management, investigating a deeper understanding of the knowledge about, from and for the Chinese tourists, and Greece was taken as a case study. An online survey with quantitative aspects was conducted from October 2013 to January 2014. Findings – The knowledge about the Chinese tourists depicts a young, well-educated segment with a predominance of female and western China residents. The knowledge from the Chinese tourists reveals that they prefer: visiting islands and heritage sites; safety while travelling; a faster visa process; a direct flight between China and Greece; and making a trip combined with other Schengen countries. The knowledge for the Chinese tourists indicates that purchasing tourism products/services online provides better price, is enjoyable, convenient and time-saving; and the top five digital platforms often used are Ctrip, Qunar, QQ, Weibo and WeChat, which could be effective tools for the promotion of Greek tourism in China. Originality/value – This research offers a first step to investigate the knowledge of Chinese tourists for the destination of Greece. The findings help to propose a strategic knowledge framework for the Greek tourism authorities so that Greece can become a more active player in the Chinese outbound tourism market.

This paper studies the potential impact of Chinese Yuan (Renminbi RMB) on Chinese outbound travel market to Egypt. For this purpose were field researches conducted; a questionnaire about Chinese outbound travel market in Egypt and interviews with experts in both tourism and financial markets .The collected data was analyzed statistically using SPSS V. 19. The results of the current study indicate that there is little negative impact of Chinese Yuan currency on Chinese outbound travel market to Egypt in the short time and the major benefits in the long time. Also, the devaluation of Yuan will have a significant impact on what Chinese tourists do shopping in Egypt. In addition, the first estimates also indicate that the impact of Yuan is closed to US dollar exchange rates in the short time. The study presents a number of recommendations for government and tourist businesses in Egypt to exploit some opportunities specially in quick applying of swap currency agreement between Egypt and China, legislation issue to control both tourist businesses and financial market in Egypt and all trip items should price in Yuan for Chinese tourists.

The Chinese outbound market has surpassed that of any country in the world in recent years. It specifically became the leading source market for many Asian countries. In this respect, this study uses a monthly dataset of tourist arrivals from 1995 to 2019 to investigate the seasonality patterns of Chinese outbound tourists in eight tourist destinations in Asia popular among Chinese tourists. The Gini coefficient and the Seasonal Index were used to examine the seasonality patterns. The results of this research reveal a generally consistent pattern across all destinations examined, confirming the occurrence of two distinct peaks (i.e., February and July to August) and off-peak (i.e., March to June and November to December) periods. The findings further show the expansion of the Chinese market has considerably softened the seasonality in the inbound tourism of the countries studied. Finally, key implications of the study findings are discussed, highlighting some practical insights that might help practitioners manage seasonality.

Goal and objectives of the dissertationGoalThis study evaluates usefulness performance of websites by integrating functionality and usability, a fuzzy hierarchical TOPSIS model was designed for calculation process.Objectives- to develop a comprehensive list of attributes for functionality based on literature;- to establish a comprehensive list of attributes for usability based on literature;- to integrate the applicability of these two lists in the Chinese and international context; and- to assess the usefulness (functionality and usability) performance of different groups of websites (China-based and international luxury hotels) using a fuzzy TOPSIS hierarchical model from users' perception.MethodologyThe research combines both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to achieve the objectives of developing a usefulness evaluation framework and evaluating usefulness performance of websites. methodology section includes three stages. At stage one, a qualitative approach that involved Chinese and international focus groups formed by population of tourists who have purchased or searched travel products in the past 12 months. New usefulness attributes for websites were discovered from Chinese online travelers, and then the applicability of these attributes in an international context was tested. result of group discussions was employed to establish a new set of usefulness evaluation measurement.Stage two aimed to collect the perceived importance of usefulness attributes from Chinese and international respondents who have visited or searched luxury websites. performance scores of selected websites were generated from Chinese and international evaluators. For a normal sampling distribution the minimum sample size should be 30 (Mendenhall & Beaver, 1995). Thus, the researcher randomly selected 30 international luxury hotels from the publication The Leading Hotels of the World (Romanella & Chung, 2007). China-based luxury hotels were selected from the top 30 Chinese cities that received more than 200,000 inbound tourists. Using Ctrip.com, the top online travel operator in China that provides a star-related list, hotels were randomly selected.The third stage used a modified fuzzy hierarchical TOPSIS model that integrates the perceived importance of usefulness into evaluation results, which represent the overall performance of selected luxury websites. research data were mainly calculated by newly developed fuzzy model.ResultsA new usefulness evaluation list was produced and the applicability of the new list was tested by both international and Chinese consumers. importance of each usefulness attribute was indicated by Chinese and international consumers, respectively. Results revealed that Chinese and international users had similar perceptions of functionality. most important attribute is reservation information. In particular, hotel location, room rate, secured payment system, hotel descriptions, and hotel facilities were evaluated as high importance by both international and Chinese luxury consumers. On the usability aspect, both international and Chinese consumers indicated that Access speed of website, information credibility, and website learnability was the most important among all usability attributes. Different perspectives were observed between these two groups of consumers. International consumers care more about how to explore a while Chinese consumers considered accessibility and ease of use as more important attributes. Therefore, hoteliers should treat these two groups of consumers separately during their development.The usefulness performance of 30 China-based and 30 international luxury websites was evaluated by both Chinese and international evaluators, respectively. …

Due to the tremendous expansion of Chinese outbound travel market, it is of great significance to identify the characteristics of potential Chinese outbound tourists so as to develop targeted marketing strategies. As both extrinsic and intrinsic characteristics of individuals are important in influencing their decision-making process, this study explores potential Chinese outbound tourists from these two aspects. Demographic and psychographic factors, as the proxy of extrinsic and intrinsic characteristics, respectively, are incorporated into this study to construct the relationship between tourists' characteristics and their intentions of outbound travel. An advanced machine learning approach, called twice-learning, is employed for modelling in this study. As an intelligent data analysis tool, this method is able to construct models that can provide insight into the ground-truth relationships hidden beneath the data in an essentially comprehensible way, without being limited by the typical assumptions held by the traditional data analysis methods. By applying this method, the important personal factors that influence Chinese citizens' intentions of outbound travel are detected, and the typical groups of potential Chinese outbound tourists are characterised. The findings would be beneficial for destination marketers to develop marketing strategies on positioning and advertising which are tailored to potential Chinese outbound travel market.

Background/Objectives: This study aims to investigate medical tourism using IPA (Importance-Performance Analysis) to attract Chinese medical tourists to Korea. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Paired t-test was conducted to figure out differences between importance and performance on medical tourism selection attributes. And based on the results from paired t-test, IPA has been conducted to deduce practical implications on K-medical tourism market targeting Chinese tourists. In addition, to figure out influential relationship between the attributes and travelers’ behavior, multi-regression analysis has been used. Findings: 3 of the attributes are located in 1st quadrant in IPA matrix, including attractiveness of the country as a tourist destination, security and safety of travel to country, good condition of shopping and tour. And in 2nd quadrant (Concentrate here), 5 attributes are located in, including doctor’s expertise, friendliness and communication of staff and doctors, many cultural and natural attractions,convenient location, and accreditation of the medical facility. And 4 attributes are found in 3rd quadrant (Possible overkill), including follow-up after treatment, state-of-the art medical equipment,stability of medical care skills, and low cost of treatment. Lastly, 2 attributes including low cost of accommodation and many attractions of the local area of tourism destination are shown in 4th quadrant, referring ‘Low Priority’. And in multi-regression analysis, four components out of five attributes (follow-up after treatment, stability of medical care skills, low cost of treatment, and convenient location), except state-of-the art medical equipment, have shown positive effects on Chinese travelers’ behavior. Improvements/Applications: The results could categorize Chinese Travelers’ selection attributes into Familiarity, Convenience, Reliability, and Internationality. And attributes that significantly correlate with Chinese travelers’ behavior are four attributes including follow-up after treatment, stability of medicalcare skills, low cost of treatment, and convenient location.Keywords: Convenience, Familiarity, Internationality, IPA, Paired-Sample T-test, Reliability

China has been, and still is, by far the fastest growing tourism source market in the world. Chinese outbound travel has seen a rapid increase because Chinese authorities have not only implemented policies which facilitate the Chinese outbound tourism but also, the rising standards of living in China have expanded the demand for overseas tourism. The objective of this study is to examine the development of Chinese tourism in Greece, identify the motivation factors of Chinese tourists who visit Greece, determine the destination attributes of Greece which attract them and discover their activity preferences in Greece. A qualitative research using semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 19 interviewees was conducted, 17 of them with Chinese tourists, conducted in the district of the Acropolis (Athens) and two with professionals in the field of tourism in Greece. Results show that the most significant push–pull factors for Chinese tourists visiting Greece are cultural exchange, the relaxation-escape from their routine, prestige, the history of Greece, the blue and white color of Cyclades, Greek hospitality, archeological sites, good quality of the hotel services and, finally, Greek food and good event organisation. The research findings could help to build a strategy for the Greek tourism authority to prepare itself to become a more active player in the Chinese outbound market. The recommendations include simplification of the visa issuing procedure and direct flights connecting the two countries, proper preparation of the accommodation sector (a better understanding and respect for the Chinese culture), improvement of amenities such as public safety and communications and effective contact with more tour operators in China.

This thesis looks at travel writing about China crossing three main research axes. The main one is represented by the comparison between Western-authored contemporary travel books and travel blogs. The majority of studies on Western travel writing about China focuses on pre-modern and modern texts, while much less attention has been dedicated to contemporary travelogues. At the same time, by projecting the genre onto the web, this study offers a mapping of the blogosphere and questions the literary and epistemological status of travel writing. Through a close reading analysis, the aim is to outline medial and rhetorical differences and similarities between travel books and blogs, particularly in terms of how China is represented, as well as the way in which travel writers perceive themselves. In this latter respect, interviews with travel authors and bloggers are also included. The second research axis explores the diachronic evolution of Western-authored travel books about the Middle Kingdom. Building on the findings of the first part of the thesis, the analysis looks at texts from the end of the 19th century throughout the 20th century, complementing the attention to pre-modern and modern travel accounts of earlier studies on travel writing about China. The goal is to understand if and how the genre and the representation of China have changed over the last century. The third axis is cross-cultural: in the last chapter a number of contemporary Chinese-authored travel accounts are analyzed. Referring to existing literature about Chinese travel writing, to be highlighted are the rhetorical and medial differences between “classic” and contemporary texts, as well as between books and blogs. Concerning the first research axis, findings suggest that Western travel books are more diversified generically speaking than travel blogs. Moreover, while the former provide a rather composite representation of the country, the latter are mainly devoted to deliver objectified touristic information. As for the second research axis, no substantial shifts were detected in the genre’s features, or in the way in which China has been represented in Western travel writing during the 20th century. Lastly, it is advanced that Chinese travel books are deeply politicized, while travel blogs tend to convey a contemplative representation of the country, more in the spirit of “classic” Chinese travel writing. However, differently from Western writers, both Chinese authors and bloggers manage to portray China from a variety of points of view.