Cultural influence on the behaviour, attitude, and perception of mainland Chinese tourists in China: An e-commerce perspective

This thesis is developed through a critical discussion of key literature for understanding cultural influence on tourist consumer behaviour and also an empirical investigation of Mainland Chinese tourists when adopting travel e-commerce in China. Previous research in the field of ecommerce adoption and diffusion in China has focused on the influential factors in terms of technological/infrastructural unsettlement, economic instability, and lacking governmental support. Less attention has been given to the cultural influences affecting e-commerce behaviour in tourism and its cultural context. This thesis attends to this lack with regard to Chinese consumer culture and tourists' behaviour, preference, and attitude, as culturally influenced practice towards online travel purchase in China. The major contribution of this thesis therefore is both to explore the existence of cultural influence on travel e-commerce adoption and diffusion in China, and to investigate how and to what extent the Mainland Chinese culture is influencing the behaviour, attitude, and preference of the Mainland Chinese tourists when adopting online travel. Through a theoretical discussion, it concludes that in order to achieve the objectives stated above, a multiple-staged research strategy is adopted consisting questionnaire survey, focus group discussion, and sub-structured interview to investigate the experiences of the Mainland Chinese tourists as well as current service providers when adopting travel e-commerce in China. Two major conclusions are drawn from this study. Firstly, from both theoretical discussion and the empirical investigation, the research reveals that it is more appropriate to understand the current situation of travel e-commerce adoption and diffusion in China as a joint effect made by external (mainly economic, technological) and internal (mainly personal/behavioural)f actors. And secondly, the research findings suggest that to some extent culture influences the purchase behaviour, motivation, and consumer preferences of the Mainland Chinese tourists while adopting travel e-commerce in China. It is also identified by both the Mainland Chinese tourists and existing travel service providers that culture affects almost every process of online travel purchase in China from the tourists approaching or searching for useful information regarding their travel arrangements to the actual purchase decision making.