综合国家距离对中国入境旅游的影响——基于CAGE距离框架的实证研究

入境旅游在旅游发展中具有重要战略地位,而我国入境旅游发展相对滞后,甚至影响到我国服务贸易的高质量发展。旅游具有异地性特征,现有研究往往从文化距离、行政距离、地理距离或经济距离等单一距离开展研究。然而,多种距离同时影响游客决策,单一距离模型降低了距离因素的解释力,同时纳入模型又会造成共线性问题,导致现有研究结论间存在矛盾,阻碍理论发展与应用。Ghemawat提出的国家距离框架基于多种距离形成评价总体国家距离的综合国家距离,得到普遍认可。文章基于国家距离框架,整合来自世界银行数据库、霍夫斯泰德文化维度官方数据、双边地理距离数据库、世界经济论坛等相关数据,形成2006—2018年我国55个客源国入境旅游的平衡面板数据,系统分析了综合国家距离对入境游客量的主效应、非线性影响,以及客源国互联网使用率的调节作用,得到如下结论:(1)综合国家距离是影响我国入境游客量的显著变量,距离对入境游的影响是文化距离、行政距离、地理距离和经济距离的复合效应;(2)综合国家距离与入境游客量之间呈正U形关系,综合国家距离可以是入境旅游的阻碍因素,也可以是促进因素,入境游客量随着综合国家距离增加而先减少后增加;(3)客源国互联网使用率没有弱化综合国家距离的影响,反而产生极化作用,极化了综合国家距离在拐点左侧的负影响和在拐点右侧的正影响。以上发现的主要价值为:(1)增进了对距离因素在国际旅游中作用的理解,提出影响入境游客量的综合国家距离变量;(2)识别出综合国家距离与入境游客量呈现正U形关系,证实综合国家距离是细分客源国市场的新变量;(3)揭示出客源国互联网使用率对综合国家距离产生的极化效应,突出了我国采用互联网传播目的地形象的必要性和重要性。

The Influence of Comprehensive Country Distance on Chinese Inbound Tourism:An Empirical Study on the CAGE Distance Framework

Inbound tourism plays an important strategic role in tourism development. The Chinese inbound tourism industry is relatively underdeveloped, which affects even the high-quality development of the Chinese services trade. Nonresidents are the key characteristic in tourism. However,existing literature has mainly focused on a single type of distance, such as cultural distance,administrative distance, geographic distance, and economic distance. Since tourist decisions are determined by these distance factors simultaneously, consideration of only a single type of distance weaks the explanatory power of distance, while simultaneous inclusion of these distance factors may lead to collinearity problems. This situation leads to contradictions among research conclusions and hinders the application of the theory. Based on the CAGE distance framework proposed by Ghemawat,comprehensive country distance can measure the distance between countries in a manner that can be accepted generally. This paper integrates several database sources into panel data, such as World Bank,the Hofstede official website, CPIII, and the World Economic Forum. The panel data contains related data concerning inbound tourist arrivals from 55 origin countries in the period 2006—2018. This paper analyses the main effects of comprehensive country distance, its nonlinear impact, and the moderating effect of internet usage in origin countries. The results show that: 1. comprehensive country distance has a significant impact on inbound arrivals, and its effect is the composition effect of cultural distance,administrative distance, geographic distance, and economic distance;2. there is a U-shaped relationship between country distance and inbound tourist volume, and the quantile of the inflection point is 71%,which means that country distance is both an obstacle to and a stimulus for inbound tourism and that the number of inbound tourists first decreases and then increases as country distance increases;3.internet usage in origin countries does not flatten this U-shaped relationship but rather steepens it, and internet usage polarizes the negative impact of country distance on the left side of the inflection point and the positive impact on the right side of the inflection point. The research values are as follows: 1.this paper advances understanding of the effect of distance factors on international tourism and proposes a comprehensive country distance variable that influences inbound tourist arrivals;2. this paper identifies the U-shaped curve between comprehensive country distance and inbound tourist arrivals and demonstrates that comprehensive country distance is a new variable for segmenting origin markets;and 3. this paper uncovers the polarization effect of internet usage in origin countries on the impact of comprehensive country distance on inbound tourist arrivals and highlights the importance of conveying an image of China as a tourist destination via the internet.