Introduction
Modernization and globalization are some of the current trends in international relationships. These principles have ensured that members of the international community interact in different forums and platforms. Tourism is one of the most internationally engaging and interactive platforms, which has seen millions of tourists travel to the international territories for different reasons including enjoyment, adventure, education, and weather change among several other special needs. Despite the increasing modernization and globalization, the diversities of different cultures have been a challenge to the managers and marketers in the tourism industry. It is very important to understand every culture and ensure that, every individual is treated uniquely according to their unique needs.
Tourism managers and marketers need to take into consideration every cultural aspect of the visitors they expect in their destinations in order to ensure that these tourists enjoy their visits as well as get a comfortable “home away from home.” The understanding of the needs and preferences of tourists maintains a good relationship between the tourists and their hosts, which is beneficial to the managers and the marketers as well as the tourists. It does not only maintain trust between the two groups, but also ensures that the whole process of seeking tourists and hosting them is smooth and pleasant. The understanding of the needs and preferences of the Chinese tourists is additionally important in setting the host conditions, which should favor the travelers as they come into their destinations.
The Chinese outbound tourism can be traced back to 183 following the special arrangements allowing the Mainland Chinese citizens to visit Macao and Hong Kong. The rising Chinese outbound tourism has been associated to the increasing economic development, relaxation of travel restrictions, and the rising individual wealth. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the Chinese outbound tourism market grew by about 21 percent within the decade between 1997 and 2007 annually (2008). Despite the global economic downturn in 2009, the Mainland Chinese citizens travelling on outbound tourism were approximated at about 48 million, which was about a 4 percent growth in the tourism market (Qian, 2010).
According to recent studies, it is estimated that about 22 million Chinese have travelled or plan to travel to destinations beyond the Mainland China, Macao, or Hong Kong. About half of the above population have travelled or plan to travel to different destinations beyond Asia. Considering the current state of the Chinese economy, the rate of outbound tourism seems promising and might increase in the recent future as well as maintain or improve trends. This might make the Chinese community a major target for the tourism mangers and marketers in order to “contribute to the stability of the world’s tourism economy” (Dai, 2008). It is approximated that, the People’s Republic of China might become one of the largest outbound tourism markets by 2020 (World Tourism Organization, 2003). Therefore, the hospitality industry is constantly seeking to meet the needs and preferences of these tourists to gain and increase their market share. Therefore, managers and marketers are constantly seeking to make the tourist destinations better equipped with the needs tailored to the Chinese markets.
According to different studies on tourists’ satisfaction and market segmentation, the destination managers and marketers have the responsibility of developing their understanding of the specific market segments in order to accommodate the diverse needs of the tourists. This will help in ensuring that they establish effective and efficient promotion and marketing strategies, which are tailored to meet the diverse needs of these tourists (Chow, & Murphy, 2008). Therefore, in order meet the diverse needs of the Chinese tourists, tourism managers and marketers need to develop strategies, which are tailored towards serving specific needs of the guest, which consider cultural and social as well as other important needs and preferences. It is very important to ensure that the guests are satisfied with the services they receive in their destinations. This will increase the possibilities of visiting these destinations another time, or even coming with other new guests, or better still encouraging them to visit these destinations. This would serve a marketing strategy, which benefits from the initial management and marketing strategies put in place.
While studying tourism management and marketing, it is very important to understand how and why people select travel destinations since it provides a sequential process as well as explains the process of determining the final destination choice. The understanding of travel destination selection is equally important in linking the travelers’ motivations to their perceptions of their travel destinations. A potential guest is likely to choose destination if he perceives that it could meet his motivations (Matzler & Siller, 2003, p. 7).
Misunderstandings about the Chinese Culture
There have been some levels of misinterpretation of the Chinese culture. First, the managers and markers as well as students have either ignored or forgotten the diversities of the Chinese culture. In most of the western research institutions as well as travel destinations, the Chinese culture has been generalized as a whole. The Hofestede cultural dimension has won credibility by giving the reference to the tourism industry, which conducts its business across cultural diversities. Rosalie L. Tung indicates in his research that, the use of highly standardized questionnaires to investigate the higher level cultural driving forces of managerial behavior has been a problem in the industry (Beerli, & Martin, 2004). Additionally, Hofstede fails to consider the possibility of the regional variations, individual deviations, and subcultures within one culture. Therefore, despite the calculation of the samples and the reliability of the responses, the generalization of China as one culture becomes questionable.
Statistical research indicates that, within the Chinese community – from the hinterlands of the North, to the green jungles in the South, from the mountain tops in Taiwan East, to the top of the world in the West –, there are at least 56 ethnic communities. These ethnic communities have their own culture, characteristics, and languages among several other differences. The Han comprise the highest ethnic community in China, approximated to cover about 92 percent of the Chinese population (Li, Lai, Harrill, Kline, and Wang, 2011). According to most of the tourism managers and marketers, they have been blinded by the abundance of the Han culture in China, thereby branding it as the “Chinese culture” and neglecting the 55 other ethnic minorities. Even further, there are sub cultural diversities within the ethnic communities based on geographical and historical compositions of the cultures. The Yangtze River divides the large Han culture into two mainstreams namely the Jiang Bei and the Jiang Nan in the northern and southern regions of the rivers respectively. Even further, these mainstreams are also sub grouped according to geographical, traditional, or historical backgrounds and differences. The generalization of the Chinese culture, therefore, disregards the diversities and the small cultural groups.
Secondly, most of the research about the Chinese tourists and their culture majorly entails the description of certain parts of the Chinese traditions and branding them as Chinese culture without delving deep to establish the reasons behind these phenomena. This has been a biased description of the Chinese culture. In most of the marketing and management guides, books and cross-cultural references on the Chinese culture, descriptive errors have been persistent. For example, in his book titles “Tourist Behavior,” Philip L Pearce describes the Chinese tourists as group orientation, sufficient shopping time, preference of Chinese food among others (Littrell, Paige, & Song, 2004). Another article provides the worst definition of the Chinese tourists to Singapore as conservative, uncivilized, and staying within groups with loud discussions in public places (Law, Cheung, & Lo, 2004). Some of the researches about the Chinese culture lack the information about the Chinese culture. John W Berry defines the term culture as consisting of three patters. He considers culture as not being restricted to high culture, but to all products of human life. He then differentiates culture from civilization – all human groups possess culture including the civilized and the primitive. Finally, he indicates that culture and the society are two different phenomena, but are close related. While the society is the collective organization of people, who interact through their activities as a common goal and share common beliefs and attitudes (Kwek, & Lee, Y-S, 2008), culture refers to the ways of life that the members of the society hold in common. Therefore, summing the Chinese population has been a wrong conception of the Chinese Culture.
Thirdly, the tourism managers and marketers have forgotten the transformation process of the Chinese culture. It should be noted that every culture in the world has its essential values, which are succeeded and maintained through the generations of the culture. As aforementioned, culture and the society are related, though different. Additionally, culture and the social environment coexist and interact with the age, socioeconomic status, race, religious affiliations, sexual orientations, ethnicity, geographical locations and disabilities or abilities. Research also indicates that, social transformations are responsible for the changes in cultural values due to the socio-demographic issues, economic situations, or political reforms. Most of the western tourism managers, marketers, and researchers have ignored this kind of social transformation, thereby making these researches outdated. The Chinese community has economically and socially evolved. Therefore, comparing the culture to the Hofstede research, which was conducted in the 80s, brings an irrelevant comparison. The actual study on tourists is also still very limited.
In recent years, the literatures about tourism have been published on disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology as well as economics and geography. In these publications, most of the authors concur that; tourism should be the subject of interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and even extra-disciplinary studies. This could provide a comprehensive study, which takes into account the dynamics, complexities, and heterogeneity of tourism. Additionally, most of the available marketing research about consumer behavior ignores the cultural and social contexts of tourism. The studies should make more considerations of the human needs, which are either biological (inborn), or learned. The analysis could be applied to normal and universal products such as food and beverage. Nevertheless, the patterns of consumption of these products can be varied according to communities or cultural variations.
How could tourism providers better serve this market?
As earlier mentioned in this paper, there has been a misunderstanding of the cultural differences and diversities of the Chinese population due to the generalization of the Chinese community into one culture. For instance, most tourism research considers the Han culture as the Chinese culture, which ignores the cultural diversities and other 55 ethnic communities. Even further, the cultural compositions of the Han community is also segmented based on geographical locations, historical backgrounds, and other differences, which are equally present in the other ethnic communities. In order to better serve the increasing Chinese outbound tourists, which is one of the promising tourism markets, it is very important to solve the three biases on the Chinese population as earlier mentioned in this paper.
Firstly, the tourism managers and marketers need to understand the cultural diversities of the Chinese community in terms of their needs and preferences. While selecting travel destinations, the cultural and historical backgrounds play a significant role for the tourists. In order to serve the diverse cultural needs, more research should be aimed at finding the cultural preferences of the outbound Chinese tourists. Additionally, these researches should study the trends in the inbound tourism in China to determine these needs. This will provide the balance of the conditions relevant to the tourists as well as encourage consumer behavior.
Secondly, due to inadequate research about the Chinese tourists and their culture, most studies have entailed the descriptions of specific parts of the Chinese traditions and branded them as Chinese culture without the establishment of the reasons behind these phenomena. This has resulted in different biases and descriptive errors. More research is needed on the Chinese culture to ensure that the travel destinations embrace Chinese-like environments in order to accommodate the cultural components of the Chinese tourists. Before establishing the conclusions of the best way to treat the Chinese travelers, it is important to provide them with conditions, which favor their stay in the travel destinations, which can only be achieved through proper research into the Chinese culture.
The third intervention strategy should be embracing the transformation processes of the Chinese culture. Due to modernization, civilization, and globalization, some aspects of culture have evolved. The theories such as Hofstede theory can no longer apply to the current situations. Relying on these previous studies to develop tourism management and marketing strategies undermines the specific needs of the tourists. This might bring about dissatisfaction of the tourists, thereby making the marketing and management strategies irrelevant. In the previous years, the number of younger generational tourists have increased, which implies that, the marketers and managers need to change their management strategies to meet the needs of the generation they serve.
Implication of the Misunderstanding of the Chinese Tourism Market
There are externalities that that affect the supplies as consumption of tourism in the Chinese market. These factors include globalization, the global perspectives, competition among the industry suppliers for the growing Chinese markets, technological transformations, and customer consumption and behavior. Governments have relaxed their regulation on the Chinese tourists to recognize their diverse cultures as well as differences in preferences. Such relaxations have led to the increased expansion of hotels, airlines, and tour operators among others, which have also incorporated the Chinese cultures. Additionally, due to industry rivalry, low costs have been achieved through the economies of scale resulting from the diagonal, horizontal, and vertical integration, which has countered the needs of cheaper tourist products for tourists from developing countries such as China. Greater communication technologies have also provided a global system of information, which ensures proper communication channels between the suppliers and the outbound Chinese tourists.
Conclusion
The improvement of information technologies have led to the increased international interactions. Modernization and globalization are also some of the responsible factors to the increased tourism. However, managers and marketers are faced with the challenge of meeting the needs and preferences of the increasing tourists all over the world. China is one of the growing outbound tourist markets in the world today and is projected to continue rising with better trends. Other factors responsible for these challenges include cultural, social, socioeconomic, and behavioral traits of the Chinese community. The little research available on the Chinese tourists has posed a major challenge to the managers and marketers. It is very important to understand the market before venturing into its exploitation.
The theories of tourism, which have been applied to understand the Chinese markets, have ignored the diversities as well as dynamism in culture due to globalization. Most people today have adopted civilized and modern lifestyles, which make theories such as the Hofstede’s theory irrelevant to understanding modern Chinese tourists. Additionally, limited researches have been established on the Chinese community. In most cases, the Han culture, which is the largest Chinese ethnic community, has been mistaken as “the Chinese culture.” However, there are about 55 other ethnic communities with distinct cultural features, which are unique to each other. Such factors have led to the improper exploitations of the Chinese outbound tour markets. In order to develop proper models and theories to meet the needs and preferences of the Chinese tourists, it is very important to ensure that the researches available delve into the cultural needs of the Chinese ethnic communities as well as the factors which influence their behavior and selection of travel destinations.
Recommendations
In order to study the trends, needs, and preferences of the Chinese tourists, it is important that researchers, students, managers, and marketers invest in the inbound tourism in China through educational programs, exchange programs, or research programs. This would ensure that, the researchers, students, marketers, and managers get the relevant information about the importance and relevance of Chinese culture in tourists. It would also ensure that they understand the behaviors and intrinsic factors, which influence the choices of travel destinations.
References:
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