Understanding Chinese outbound tourists and their Internet use for travel decision-making

Appendix A: Fi¡st Twelve Travel Web Sites ContactedChina's mainland at the end of Jun e 2At2, l,6.3 percent were 17 years old or younger while those between 18 a¡d 24 comprised another 37.2 percent (F{uang, 2û02).Among these Internet users, 33 percent said they had purchased online in the past 12 months, and seven percent spent more than 200 RMB a month on Internet connection (Huang,2AA2).In Hong Kong, between 2.6 to 2.9 million people between the ages of6 and 84 used the Internet at least one hour per week and 42 percent spent Iûl-2û0 HKD on Intemet connection per month (Zhu,2003).Among these lntemet users,4l percent were under 24 years old while 28 percent were from 25 to 35 years ofage (Zhu, 2û03).China, Iike many other countries that are rich in tourism resources and stand as popular intemational tourism destinations, is making every effort to transform traditional travel sales to online travel sales and hence bring new opportunities for its outbound tourism.Now in China, travel suppliers, such as airlines, hotels and travel agencies, have started to do business via the lntemet and to.useinformation technology (IT) for setting up and maintaining their computerized reservation systems.People in China also keep demanding establishment of more travel-¡elated rvVeb sites, which are devoted to all kinds of travel solutions for both pleasure and business travelers.China's outbound tourism From ancient times, China has played an important role in the field oftourism with its unparalleled rich travel resources in both nature and culture.Thanks fo the open policies since 1978, China experienced speedy economic development, whicl¡ resulted in a newstage of the tourism industry in China.Now, more and more Chinese with high incomes are going abroad not only for business but for private purposes as well, and some have even come to regard travelling abroad as part oftheir leisu¡e.According to the Tourism Bureau ofChina, by the end ofNovember 2002, fhe total number of Chinese outbound tourists was 15.4 million, up 39 percent from the previous November (Qian,2û03).The annual expenditures ofChinese outbound business tourists came to over 2.4 billion USD in 2002 and will keep increasing by 20 percent each year (Liu & Chen, 2002).As more foreign countries and districts have been accepted by China as international destinations for Chinese tourists, people now are able to go abroad not only for sightseeing and visiting family/friends but also for educational programs.According to Liu and Chen (2û02), each winter and summer vacations are high seasons for Chinese educational fravel, which usually lasts up to 23 days.The most popular destinations are such English-speaking countries as Australia, New Zealand and those in Europe, where students can live with Iocal ¡esidents for leaming English, Chinese tourists are also reported to spend more money orl site than local residents with total spending of at least 20 billion USD per year (Zhen g,2A0Ð.Cunently, 29 countries and districts have been accepted by Cfuna as intemational destinations for leisure travel, including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, South Africa, Egypt, Germany, and India (Li, 2002).It is even predicted that China will rank fourth among the world's top tourist generating countries by 2010 since ifs tourist market will be totally open to the world in 2005 upon its a$eemþnt with the'fuorld Tourism Organization ('WTO), which will definitely bring more choices for Chinese outbound tourists (Li, 2002). Purpose of studvIt is obvious that China is on its way to a stage ofrapid outbound tourism growth wifh the help ofthe Intemet.Until recently, however, relatively few studies have been carried out concerning Cfunese who are traveling abroad and those who are searching for and/or purchasing fravel products via the Intemet.A review ofthe literafure on Intemet use in tourism reveals that the majority ofonline tourism research has been done with North American markets because oftheir advanced level oftechnology development and Intemet use (Zhang, Pine, &, Zhang,2000).This lag in research will affecf outbound tourism promotion in China since understanding cunent and potential online consumers will permit marketing professionals and service providers to assemble services in a manner best suited to a specific consumer group's characteristics (Mazznec, 1992).Therefore, it is urgent and important to understand and profile these cunent and potential outbound tourists in China.In other words, studies should be canied out thaf examine Chinese tourists' characteristics and travel decision-making pattems.The research reported here aims to understand these current and potential Chinese outbound tourists and their use ofthe Intemet to seek and purchase fravel products.Using several current models of information search and travel decision-making as the guiding conceptual framework, an online travel information search and purchase model was proposed and tesfed by idenfifying certain socio-demographic, psychographic and behaviôural attributes and relationships among them.To explore these characteristics of Chinese outbound tourists and how they use the Intemet for travel decision-making, the research presented here has: (a) described their socio-demographical characteristics; (b) examined their past travel experience; (c) examined what influences their online fravel information sea¡ch and purchase patterns; and (d) explored perceived baniers to purchase and/or repurchase oftravel products via the Internet.The results of this exploratory study will contribute to the literature on lnternet travel information search and purchase in China, an important and rising outbound travel market segment; a profile ofcurrent and potenfial Chinese outbound tourists who use the lntemet as a tool for seeking and/or purchasing travel products; a first-stage model of Chinese outbound tourists' travel information search and decision-making via the Intemet; recommendations for increasing the lntemet use by Chinese outbound tourists in their travel decision-making; and suggestions for future travel Web sites' improvement, which target or are going to target Chinese outbound tourists.Since much ofthe current research on information search and decision-making models relies on North America samples, this study witl have both conceptual and practical implications.As refened to this research, the term "travel products" is defined as the main components that comprise a trip such as lodging, transportation, rental and tour packages, which can be purchased via the Intemet.The term "online fravel product purchase" is defined as the behaviour ofbuying travel products via online credit card transactions.