Destination Image of Taiwan From the Perspective of Hong Kong Residents: Revisiting Structural Relationships Between Destination Image Attributes and Behavioral Intention

Destination image plays an important role in how tourists make their travel and purchase decisions. This study examines the perceived image of Taiwan as a travel destination from the perspective of Hong Kong residents. The Hong Kong outbound tourism market is important for Taiwan. Using a self-completed questionnaire, this research examines the destination image of Taiwan among 213 Hong Kong residents. The results indicate that affective image is a stronger predictor of travel intention than cognitive image. Affective image also plays a mediating role in the relationship between cognitive image and behavioral intention. Hence, affective image is an important intangible quality for today’s destinations.     

香港赴澳门游客特征研究——与内地游客比较

本研究通过在澳门返回香港的轮船上以随机抽样调查的方式调查了香港到澳门旅游的游客348人.通过SPSS软件分析,揭示了香港赴澳游客的基本特征、行为模式和对澳门旅游设施的满意度.通过对比到澳门旅游的内地自由行游客和团客,本研究发现,香港游客同内地自由行游客的消费模式比较接近,同团客差距较大.本研究对预测内地游客未来的消费模式有较大的意义.     

The Effect of Distance on Tourism in Hong Kong: A Comparison of Short Haul and Long Haul Visitors

This study reports on a pilot project examining the effect of distance on the profile and trip characteristics of vacation visitors to Hong Kong. Secondary data are used. The study reveals a clear long haul/short haul dichotomy in visitor profile and resultant behaviors in Hong Kong. Long haul tourists tend to be older, more affluent and view Hong Kong as a stop-over destination, whereas short haul visitors are younger, less affluent and see it as their main and only destination. The resultant socio-demographic and destination role differences translate into substantially different in-destination behavior patterns. The authors argue that these differences are, at least in part, a function of the discriminating effect that distance has on the ability of some people to travel to long haul destinations.     

Lifestyle Segmentation of Spa Users: A Study of Inbound Travelers to Hong Kong

Based on the increasing popularity of the wellness/spa trend and the growing numbers of inbound tourists to Hong Kong, it is crucial for spa industry experts to understand the ever-changing desires of consumers. The study aims to identify the lifestyle dimensions of international spa visitors to Hong Kong and to profile each segment based on their sociodemographic and travel characteristics. The study adopts a quantitative approach to segmenting international spa visitors in Hong Kong by lifestyle. The results of the lifestyle segmentation revealed five clusters of spa visitors. The segments are “health conscious and intellectual”, “average”, “family focused”, “pleasure oriented”, and “carefree”. It is found that the majority of travelers who visit spas in Hong Kong are health conscious and intellectual. In general, visitors prefer day spas, to visit with their partner or friends, and to enjoy body massage treatments.     

The Sustainable Tourism Development in Hong Kong: An Analysis of Hong Kong Residents’ Attitude Towards Mainland Chinese Tourist

This study examines the local residents’ attitudes towards the Mainland Chinese tourists visiting Hong Kong and identifies both the extrinsic and intrinsic factors influencing these attitudes. Results showed that Hong Kong residents perceive Mainland Chinese tourists very positively due to their important role in Hong Kong’s economic development. However, it is undeniable that their negative and dissatisfactory attitudes are also very apparent. Based on the findings, Hong Kong residents can be defined as “ambivalent supporters,” and the negative impact of this attitude on tourism development in Hong Kong is becoming very influential. In the long run, how to change local residents from “ambivalent supporters to “ardent supporters” needs to be addressed in order to ensure the healthy development of Hong Kong inbound tourism.     

Evaluating museum visitor experiences based on user-generated travel photos

ABSTRACT

This research introduces online travel photos published on social media platforms as a complementary data resource to examine the behavior and experience of museum visitors. The practical value of online travel photos is demonstrated through a case study of popular Hong Kong museums, particularly by using the photo content and metadata available from the Flickr platform. The proposed approach is a generic method for understanding museum visitor behavior and preferences, and supports museum practitioners in developing improved products for visitors. The case study findings are particularly beneficial for tourism managers, especially those in Hong Kong, in promoting and attracting tourists to visit local museums.     

Ethics of Chinese & Western tourists in Hong Kong

The potential for tension between tourists and residents due to tourist behaviour is rising. In such environment, understanding tourists’ ethical judgments of different scenarios is important. This study asks tourists and residents to ethically evaluate five different scenarios, using a multidimensional ethics scale and rate the likelihood they are to engage in these scenarios while at home and on vacation. An intercept survey of 1827 questionnaires were collected from Hong Kong residents, Mainland Chinese and Western tourists. Teleological ethical theories may justify actions that are deemed ethically inappropriate by deontology or ethics of justice. Western tourists are more likely to engage in unethical behaviour on holidays than at home. For Mainland Chinese visitors, the opposite is true.     

User preferences for web site attributes: A study of the Hong Kong Disneyland

The Hong Kong Disneyland will be open in 2005 and the theme park is very likely to have an official web site. In order to determine the nature of a model/ideal official web site that would serve the promotional purpose, this study is conducted with two objectives. First, the study makes an attempt to understand the information types that the target markets, namely local Hong Kong residents, Western visitors and Chinese visitors, would like to have on the future Hong Kong Disney web site. Secondly, this research examines whether e‐ticketing is feasible for the web site. Using a questionnaire and a convenience sampling method, 198 responses were received. Empirical results indicate that the respondents all agreed that the suggested attributes should be listed in the web site. In addition, no significant difference was found among different groups of respondents on homepage information. However, significant differences were found among the interviewees’ views regarding products/services information, and ticketing information. To communicate effectively, the adoption of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is recommended in a value‐chain system for achieving successful e‐commerce.     

Backpackers in Hong Kong – motivations,preferences and contribution to sustainable tourism

This paper examines the backpacker market in Hong Kong, in terms of profile, motivation, preferences, and contribution to sustainable tourism development. The purpose is to provide an understanding of this market to help in marketing and promoting services and products that meet backpackers’ needs as part of expanding Hong Kong’s target market. Currently, Hong Kong relies on tourists from mainland China and recent reports reveal the issue of social conflicts between mainland tourists and Hong Kong residents. Based on a survey of backpackers in youth hostels and hiking trails in Hong Kong, this study revealed that backpackers are pushed by the search for new ideas and pulled by the uniquefood culture of Hong Kong, preferring to experience such a unique food culture in a traditional setting. Moreover, they are less likely to spend on international brands in Hong Kong as part of promoting sustainable tourism development.     

Analysis of Blogs and Microblogs: A Case Study of Chinese Bloggers Sharing Their Hong Kong Travel Experiences

Blogs and microblogs became popular in recent years among people who would like to share their travel experiences online. This is a phenomenon which marketers are interested in but know very little about. This exploratory study analyzes blog and microblog contents created by mainland Chinese visitors sharing their Hong Kong experiences, with the objective of gaining insights into how bloggers communicate their travel experiences and how this could help market a destination. Three hundred blog posts and 300 microblog posts are analyzed. Research results indicate a generally positive image of Hong Kong as a destination among the mainland Chinese bloggers. The study also profiles the bloggers by their usage pattern and identifies opportunities for using the social media for destination marketing purpose. While the case study is about Hong Kong, the research method and blogging patterns identified would also apply in other destination situations.     

Understanding visitor–resident relations in overtourism: developing resilience for sustainable tourism

While almost all travel destinations seek to increase tourists, less attention is paid to balancing the growth in tourists against consequent visitor–resident irritants, which is essential if the objective is to make tourism more sustainable. Overlooking the carrying capacity of a destination is a common mistake committed when formulating travel visa policies. Overtourism is a term recently used to contextualize this potential hazard to many popular tourist destinations worldwide. One notable case in point is the “multiple-entry permit” policy implemented in Hong Kong which is causing conflicts between mainland Chinese visitors and Hong Kong residents. To investigate the overtourism phenomenon in Hong Kong we develop a hysteresis model. We hypothesized that ceteris paribus, the implementation of a “multiple-entry permit” policy would lead to an overwhelming growth in day-trippers and cause a permanently negative cointegrating relationship with residents’ sentiment. We confirmed our hypothesis by using the bound tests of Autoregressive-Distributed Lag models. Our findings suggest that policymakers should note that the deterioration in visitor–resident relations from overtourism may exhibit a significant hysteresis effect that will persist far beyond the original stimulus. “Developing resilience in tourism” and “exploring sustainable degrowth” are discussed as potential strategies for long-term tourism growth.     

Air Quality in Hong Kong: A Study of the Perception of International Visitors

This paper reports on a study of the views of 1304 international travellers about their perception of air quality in Hong Kong. Findings indicated that the respondents generally did not perceive the air quality in Hong Kong as a concern when they chose to travel; they had a neutral view of this issue. However, after their visit they considered Hong Kong's air quality in both indoor and outdoor environments as worse than in their home countries. Many visitors were willing to pay an additional departure tax to fund improvements. The findings of this study have implications for decision-makers in formulating more sustainable planning policies to deal with this important environmental issue.     

How a green city brand determines the willingness to stay in a city: the case of Hong Kong

This paper studies how biophysical green resources can become brand dimensions that affect the willingness of non-local people to stay in Hong Kong. Based on the Green (Resource) Brand Hexagon (GBH), the green brand attributes of Hong Kong were tested with two samples: inbound visitors (n = 396) and outsiders, most of whom had not visited Hong Kong (n = 235). The results show that visitors have more diversified determinants than outsiders, with safety, accessibility, and the aesthetic value of parks and landscapes in particular increasing respondents’ willingness to stay in Hong Kong. Outsiders perceive that a pleasant experience in physical spaces is primarily relevant to their willingness to stay in Hong Kong for seeking employment and education. However, green brand attributes play only a small part in the views of both respondent groups, indicating the presence of non-environmental factors in the decision to stay in a city.     

Causality between business travel and trade volumes: Empirical evidence from Hong Kong

The study employed the Engle‒Granger vector autoregressive model to investigate the causality relationship between business travel and trade volumes among Hong Kong and Mainland China, Taiwan, and the United States (US) from 2002Q1 to 2012Q4. This study presented evidence that a long-run equilibrium relationship (cointegration) between Hong Kong and the US. Additionally, the US showed bidirectional causality between the two time series variables; however, business travel does Granger-cause trade volumes for the case of Mainland China and Taiwan. The concept of the linkage between business travel and trade volumes was demonstrated in this study. Significantly, this study is expected to benefit Hong Kong policy makers by enabling better planning to attract and understand the fluctuations in international business visitors from its three key trading partners.     

Creating a scale for assessing socially sustainable tourism

As destinations absorb ever increasing number of visitors, destination managers become progressively more concerned about the longer term viability of tourism from a resident's perspective. However, few studies have examined the application of real-time social sustainability within tourism, particularly how to measure impacts on social sustainability. This study outlines the development of a valid and reliable scale – the Scale of Social Sustainability (SSS) – for tourism that provides an assessment of social sustainability in destination settings. A 10-step procedure was developed drawing upon the related literature. A telephone poll-based survey generated 1839 valid responses from Hong Kong residents. Hong Kong's growing popularity as a destination provides a rich array of host–guest conflict situations. Dimensionality was identified using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Construct validity, reliability, and stability were assessed, and found good, showing that the scale could be used by other destinations worldwide. The theoretical and managerial implications of the scale are discussed, including options for annual surveys giving policy-makers alerts before situations worsen. Detailed host resident viewpoints and the large scale of the survey can help local residents be informed about tourism development and better involved in the policy formation process.     

Trip destinations, gateways and itineraries: the example of Hong Kong

Trip itinerary data present analytical problems because of the great diversity of routes that travelers follow and the varying significance of destinations along those routes. Most of the models that have been proposed to deal with this complexity have focused either on the total number of travelers from one country to another, or on the overall pattern of entire trips. An alternative and complementary approach is to examine the relative location of a destination within the larger itinerary pattern. Depending on their location within the overall trip itinerary, places can exhibit characteristics of one or more destination types: Single Destination, Gateway Destination, Egress Destination, Touring Destination, or Hub Destination. Data collected on international air travelers to Hong Kong exhibited the first four of these five patterns. Taiwan and Singapore residents primarily used Hong Kong as a Single Destination for short break shopping holidays and for business. US and Australian residents were the most likely to use Hong Kong as a trip Gateway and as a Touring Destination, especially as the Gateway for a trip to China, but Hong Kong also served as a Gateway for trips to destinations in East and Southeast Asia and, for US residents, to Australia. Residents of China were more likely to use Hong Kong as a trip Egress Destination than were others. Hong Kong has traditionally considered itself primarily as a ‘gateway to China’ and an ‘Asian travel hub’. Hong Kong, and other destinations, could benefit from being more aware of their role as an Egress Destination and of their relationships with destinations that travelers visit before and after their arrival.     

Effect of cultural distance on tourism: A study of pleasure visitors in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the effect of cultural distance on pleasure visitors, mainly vacation overnight visitors, in Hong Kong. Secondary data on 10 source markets are extracted from the annual report of visitor profile 2014 published by Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB). The data are compared to recognize the influence cultural distance can have on visitor profiles and trip characteristics, including travel patterns, expenditure, and satisfaction levels. Deteriorating effects ascribed to cultural distance are clearly observed in the following three important aspects: repeated visit, length of stay, and expenditure; however, these effects do not extend to all aspects. Therefore, cultural distance may be used to complement physical distance in order to explain the tourist flow, and it should be further studied.     

Is there stability underneath health risk resilience in Hong Kong inbound tourism?

The impacts of health crises on tourism demand vary according to the crises’ magnitude, causes, and recoverability. In some cases, the effects of these unexpected incidents have been severe. This study investigates the underlying stability of Hong Kong’s inbound tourism during three phases of health events. Data on 14 market sources for Hong Kong tourism are compared and the results discussed. Specific examinations suggest that travel from India, the U.S., the U.K., Indonesia, and the Philippines are, somewhat, less influenced by health crises in Hong Kong. Men, unmarried travelers, non-working vacationers, and repeat visitors display resilient tendencies. Expenditure tends to decrease during crises, although lengths of stay tend to increase. The inclusion of three types and phases of health crisis events and their effects on inbound travel markets suggest that the impacts of health crisis events differ according to the profile of health crisis. Implications and suggestions for future studies are discussed.     

The implicit measurement of destination image: The application of Implicit Association Tests

The previous studies about destination image measurement mainly focused on measuring tourists’ explicit cognitive processes without measuring their implicit cognitive processes. This study introduces the Implicit Association Test (IAT) into the domain of destination image measurement, and utilizes a traditional questionnaire to measure Chinese tourists’ perceived image of Japan and Hong Kong both at explicit and implicit level. Results show that Chinese tourists’ explicit preference between Japan and Hong Kong is insignificant, but there is significant implicit preference for their perceived image of Hong Kong over that of Japan. This study advances the research on destination image and enriches the method on the measurement of destination image.     

Mainland Chinese residents' perceptions and motivations of visiting Hong Kong: Evidence from focus group interviews

Focus groups were employed to identify Mainland Chinese residents' perceptions, motivations and perceived behavioral inhibitors of visiting Hong Kong. Three group discussions were conducted in Beijing and two groups in Guangzhou, with a total of 36 participants. Results showed that Mainland Chinese residents perceived Hong Kong mainly as a shopping destination. Accordingly, their most prominent visitation motivation to Hong Kong was shopping. Other motivations identified from the group interviews were knowledge enhancement, curiosity, family togetherness and kinship enhancement, sightseeing, experiencing different culture and lifestyle, and visiting friends and relatives. In addition to time and money as the most salient perceived behavioral inhibitors, language, complexity of getting travel documents, and improper accommodation supplies were perceived as inhibiting factors for Mainland Chinese residents to visit Hong Kong. Based on the results, implications on destination management and marketing were discussed.