The number of international tourists from China has increased remarkably in the past two decades, and it is expected to continue growing with an increase of household income and discretionary time. This thesis aims to understand Chinese outbound pleasure travellers by identifying their travel motivations, constraints and decision making in the pre-trip stage. Beijing was selected in the research because it is one of the three largest outbound tourist generating cities in China. Hence, the characteristics of travellers from Beijing are representative of a significant part in China's outbound travel market.
This thesis addresses the following issues. The study of motivation answers quotwhyquot Chinese tourists go overseas for holiday. The literature suggests motivation can be understood from push and pull perspectives. In this framework, push factors refer to the tourist as a subject and deal with those factors driving him or her to travel. On the other hand, pull factors are those which attract the tourist to a given resort or destination. This study attempts to identify the push and pull factors associated with Chinese outbound tourists. Furthermore, market segmentation was achieved based on this framework by clustering the respondents into four groups.
The decision-making process is complex and involves several stages and influencing factors. The first decision is usually whether to travel or stay at home. The preposition is that motivation and constraints have certain impacts on participation. The next decision is related to where to travel. The preposition here is that the destination choice is influenced by motivation, constraints and socio-demographic characteristics as well as the attractiveness of place attributes. Moreover, these factors are expected
to also influence the travel frequency. After selecting the destination, a number of subordinate decisions, such as accommodation, travel mode, length of stay and activities have to be made. The preposition is that decisions on these issues are greatly influenced by socio-demographic characteristics. A theoretical model of decision-making was presented on the basis of these propositions. It should be mentioned that this model focuses on the relationship of these factors instead of the sequence of decision-making. There are indeed cases in which, for example, people decide on activities before destination choice.
A mixed method was adopted when the merits and deficiencies of both qualitative and quantitative approaches were taken into consideration. Qualitative data from interviews with 20 Beijing residents were collected with two purposes: first, to help identify the variables selected in the survey; second, to supplement interpretation of the results from the survey. Next a survey was used to gather quantitative data. T-test, ANOVA, factor and cluster analysis, as well as regression were used to analyse the data in SPSS. The combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was utilized to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings.
The study identifies the most important push and pull motivations as well as the main constraints for Beijing outbound tourists. The results of the study also include an assessment of the influences of motivation, constraints and the role of socio-demographic variables on destination choice and travel frequency. Other useful findings about subdecisions of Beijing outbound tourists are reported such as desired activities, information search, accommodation selection etc.
The research findings provide information for destination marketers and service providers as to the expectation, preference, and characteristics of Chinese outbound iii
tourists, and help them better promote and service this market. Meanwhile, the research contributes to the travel behaviour literature by providing empirical evidence about the decision-making process of Chinese outbound tourists.
