The paper is a detailed review of Chinese consumer behavior and culture and how that it influences their purchasing path among outbound leisure travelers. Collectivist tourists were more inclined to initiate purchases based on social considerations such as self-image, and reputation. On the other hand, the individualists were more self-centered, and individual preferences guided their purchases. The choice of the destination location and the purchase decisions made during the leisure visits were mediated by diverse factors such as price sensitivity, congruence between the consumer’s requirements and the destination’s product offering. It is necessary for the service providers to appreciate the tourist's expectations, motivations, and consumption values because each of these factors impacted the brand loyalty, electronic word of mouth, the rate of return. In decision-making model the paper discusses the conventional model in which comprises of five elements and aids in appreciating the buying behavior process in tourism. Tourists who have no travel experience have felt need or travel desire. The desire to travel is felt, and arguments for and against that desire is considered. After that, the potential tourist applies travel mediators, brochures and advertisements, as well as pals to obtain this information, are evaluated considering both economic and time constraints. Often, tourists make travel arrangements after the decision making procedure; travel occurs once booking is made, budgets are then structured; clothing and equipment are then organized. During and after the trip the experienced is accessed, and the results affect future travel decisions.
Decision making or mindset for a tourist is an essential issue. Decision making is not merely a reaction of the behavior of the consumer; it is interaction and outcome of the whole set of influencing internal and external factors that lead a consumer towards an individual decision (Gao, & Bai, 2014). In most situations, decision making is influenced by fundamental factors of individuals’ psychological dissecting of matters of concern such as motives, inspiration, timing, choice, and price with cost-benefit accounting, ability, and intention (Solomon, Dahl, White, Zaichkowsky, & Polegato, 2014). In procuring tourism services, consumer behavior can be explained as the procedures involved when persons or a people group identify, choose, buy, use or discard products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy their needs and desires.
There exists a process which a consumer has to overcome to purchase a product or service. The method is expedient for the tourism department as the decision-making is a significant player in the mindset of the consumer (He, & Wang, 2015). External factors such as attractions of destination, the opportunity presented, country friendliness and worldwide economy, zonal or country environment (both political and geographical), the availability of technological amenities, and tourism marketing strategies have some influence on tourism demand in China(Richard & Habibi, 2016).
Success in China economically is greatly influenced by their culture. Culture is a set of principles that a specific group of people believes in and carry out their activities based on these norms and beliefs(Yin, Qian, & Singhapakdi, 2016). The core values are essential in shaping any country’s national culture. The effect of national culture affects Chinese consumers’ behaviors can measure using various parameters which includes; short-term and the long-term orientations, togetherness vs. individualism, power in feminism vs. masculinity (Ladhari, & Tchetgna, 2015).
China having 56 ethnic groups implies that there are different types of cultures in different parts of China (Legohérel, Hsu, & Daucé, 2015). With this in mind, China is seen as heterogeneous consumer market as opposed to the homogeneous consumer market (Cantallops & Salvi, 2014). With this in mind, the consumers’ behavior in these two regions is automatically different hence an examination of these two cultures is critical.
Generally, someone’s consuming behavior most of the time is pegged to the cultural set up of that community which may have taken centuries to come with the norms and how best they can be enforced (Han, & Hyun, 2015). However, buyers’ behaviors can be influenced by socialization. To understand consumers behaviors one need to understand the underlying factors towards such a pattern. Some of these factors may include; the promotion, people, place, price, product, and the physical evidence (Horner & Swarbrooke, 2016).
Individual tourism demand and preferences are to a great extent influenced by personal sovereignty in decision-making, own economic well-being and situations of available opportunity, global economy, and other behavioral factors (Yang et al., 2015). On the other hand, tourism consumption is affected by nature of products, quality, appeal, cost, availability, opportunity-cost, the cultural significance of the item, and consumer satisfaction (Zhang, & Benyoucef, 2016). Tourism demand can be defined as the total number of persons who travel or wish to travel (Wan, Poon, & Yu, 2016). There are myriad ways of defining tourism demand; more economic-oriented definitions are more focused with the schedule of the amount of any product or service which individuals are willing and in a position to purchase at a particular price in a set of probable costs in a specified era of time.
There are three main characteristics to tourism demands in China:
Active or actual demands- they are the number of people participating in tourism, commonly known as the number of travelers. It is measured by statistics of tourists-typically departure from one location to another destination for tourism (Souiden & Rani, 2015).
Suppressed demand comprises of the percentage of the population who could not travel because of different situations (Like lack of purchasing power or inadequate holiday entitlement). It is also known as potential demand (Haryanto, Moutinho, & Coelho, 2016). Potential demand can be adapted to effective demand if the events are altered. There is also deferred demand where constraints (absence of tourism supply such as a shortage of lodging facilities) can be transformed to effective demand if a destination or locality can condone the demand(Wang, De Steur, Gellynck, & Verbeke, 2015).
According to Westjohn et al. (2016) and Nwachukwu, & Dant (2015), no demand- it is a separate category for those members of the public who have no interest to travel and those who cannot travel because of family commitments or illness.
Tourism satisfaction is intricately connected with the expectations of customers and product’s perceived performance. If the product fulfills the customer’s expectations he or she is satisfied; if it surpasses them the consumer is highly satisfied; but if it falls short the consumer is dissatisfied (Yadav & Pathak, 2016). Besides, customers having diverse elements can bring in variability in the satisfaction retention relationship. After buying a product or service, the customer experiences a certain level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction depending on the quality of the product or the preferences and expectations of the consumer (Clemes, Gan& Zhang, 2014). A marketer’s job in tourism continues even after the product has been sold to monitoring the satisfaction levels of the product, after purchase actions, and post-purchase product use.
It is essential to determine whether the consumer will be highly satisfied, averagely satisfied, or not satisfied with a product. The consumers’ satisfaction is directly connected to the closeness between the consumer’s expectations and the product’s detected performance (Tsao et al., 2015). If the performance does not meet the anticipation, the customer is dismayed. On the opposite, if the production of the products fulfills the provided expectations the customer is satisfied. If the performance surpasses the expectations, the customer is very happy (Goodrich & De Mooij, 2014). Since the tourism industry is facing stiff competition in China, it is no longer adequate to satisfy customers. Customers need to be made happy by the tourism products. Comprehending why people choose to travel as tourists is a very complex arena; it has also been widely referred to as theoretical research to categorize travel levers into categories to fathom what drives them to visit particular places and resorts (Bartikowski & Walsh, 2015).
Chinese consumer studies show that the most successful companies will be those that have the wealthiest comprehension of the consumers and the marketplace in various demographics and geographic groups (Mazaheri et al., 2014: Zeugner-Roth et al.s, 2015). Companies can obtain competitive temporal edge by concentrating on customers that are in a way unaffected by the downturn. The Chinese customer market is rapidly growing, and fresh products are mostly accepted even before their forerunners have made headway into the market (Thøgersen et al., 2017). Advertising products in the media are the most efficient and traditional way of reaching customers in the tourism sector especially when a new company or product is being introduced (Li Zhang, & Sun, (2015). The availability of TV almost everywhere in China makes it a viable means of targeting customers in mid-sized towns, which are proliferating regarding income and spending power (Rani, 2014).
As per Tourism and Events’ Queensland research did research, Chinese autonomous travelers want to ease and chill out while visiting places with remarkable natural sceneries and world famous sights(Sharma, 2015). They want to enjoy the ease of a developed country and participate in a different culture. In many occasions, they want to know something fresh, visit natural and human-made attractions and see value for their money (Lee & Lee, 2015). Chinese tourist appreciates the sincere respect and feels at home with high levels of enthusiasm, a positive attitude and a good grasp of Chinese culture from service providers(Joshi & Rahman, 2015). Cultural understanding needs an appreciation of the range of the Chinese tourists with the different needs and preferences depending on their travel experiences, where they dwell, their age and lifestyle. Their knowledge of tourism products grows with their growing travel experience (Lu, Fan & Zhou, 2016).
The commonly observed decision-making model in Chinese Tourism sector can be traced back to the theories of Abraham Maslow. Abraham Maslow’s model outlines a set of vital human needs that, he suggests, acts as motivators (Schütte & Ciarlante, 2016). The model is illustrated as a hierarchy, mirroring Maslow’s original proposition that the hunt to satisfy needs is pursued in prioritized strictly with lower order needs such as those for food, shelter, and clothing have to be met before higher order ones. People cannot spend money on tourism if they have unmet lower order needs (Previte, Russell‐Bennett, & Parkinson, 2015).
In later studies, Maslow amended his ideology that needs have to be fulfilled in order, for, the lowest to the highest. And appreciated the fact that persons may be motivated by higher needs even if the lower ones are only partially fulfilled, and people may seek to satisfy several needs at a go (Ali & Ahmad, 2016). Another qualification appreciates that the individual may also be motivated from time to time to descend (as opposed to ascending) the needs ladder, as problems at lower levels bring about a re-evaluation of priorities(Xu-Priour, Truong, & Klink, 2014). For instance, in tourism responses to terrorist attacks which may cause tourists to reassess their needs and consecrate a search for esteem or satisfaction in the interests of security (Chekima, 2016). Many tourist destinations decline because of such decisions.
The diagram below is an illustration of Decision-making model in China
Travel- buying behavior (Mathieson, A. and Wall, 1982)
The cycle comprises five elements and aids in appreciating the buying behavior process in tourism. Tourists who have no travel experience have felt need or travel desire. The desire to travel is felt, and arguments for and against that desire is considered (Zhang, Gursoy,& Xu, 2017). After that, the potential tourist applies travel mediators, brochures and advertisements, as well as pals to obtain this information, are evaluated considering both economic and time constraints (Thøgersen et al., 2017). Often, tourists make travel arrangements after the decision making procedure; travel occurs once booking is made, budgets are then structured; clothing and equipment are then organized. During and after the trip the experienced is accessed, and the results affect future travel decisions (Wang, 2016).
In essence, consumer’s behavior majorly depends on the type of the information they receive on a particular brand of product. Understanding the intercultural groups in China will help in understanding the national culture of the Chinese people. However, the translation is not easy because the Mandarin language is very radical in nature and direct translation may not be achievable. In case care is taken the combining of some Chinese chosen characters may be very useful in the coming up with the useful products description. However, to achieve this, understanding of the Chinese culture should be of great importance.
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