Modeling cross-cultural gender role in tourist self-presentation

Abstract

The study examines tourist self-presentational concern between home and destination environments with a sociopsychological lens by delineating the role of genders in cross-cultural settings. It is found that tourists of different genders and from different cultures exhibit varying degree of self-presentational concern at destination vs. home, conforming to the social role theory. Specifically, female tourists experience more significant relief of self-presentational concern than their male counterparts while away from home in a Western cultural context such as the United States. However, such difference between female and male tourists is not as significant in an Eastern society such as China. The findings result in the proposition of a model of cross-cultural gender role in tourist self-presentation. The study concludes with discussions of its theoretical and practical contributions as well as implications for future research.