Comparative Study of Characteristics of Asian Tourists in the United States - Focusing on Korea, China, Taiwan and Japan -

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare the characteristics of the Asian outbound tourists to the United States. This study will contribute towards the new government and market policy formation pertaining to both the tourist generating and receiving countries. This paper serves as a window for understanding trends and characteristics of outbound tourism in Korea, China, Taiwan and Japan by describing the travelers’ characteristics and travel patterns of the visitors to the United States from 1996 to 2009. This paper also identifies the estimation of income and price elasticity which can be used in developing better informed public and private policies regarding the tourism demand. The results of this study indicate that Japan among the Asia is the number one inbound tourist market in the U.S. in terms of arrivals and expenditures. However, the highest spending per traveler is the Chinese tourist. The average price elasticity was estimated at about -1.671, while income and GNI elasticity were at 1.225 and 2.432. The statistical difference among the studied countries was not significant except the income elasticity. The main characteristics of the travel patterns from the Asian countries indicate that the Chinese traveler are mostly for business, although they enjoy sightseeing, on the other hand, the majority of the Japanese tourists to the U.S. tend to be short holiday trips of 8 days, minute in comparison with 29 day tours of Chinese tourists.