Tourism promotion might be connected with sporting events (such as the Athens Olympic Games for Greece), films (such as Lord of the Rings for New Zealand), novels (such as Harry Potter for England), but the main travel information channels for Chinese tourists are travel agencies, guidebooks, TV programmes, Internet, travel books, and friends (Arlt, 2006; Sparks & Pan, 2009). Figures from a survey in 2001 showed the proportion of different information source used by Chinese, namely: travel agency 38%, books, newspapers and TV 33%, word of mouth 18%, brochures 7%, Internet and previous visit 2% (Blok, 2002). However, the sources of information used by Chinese tourists have changed a lot in recent years. A survey conducted in 2010 by CNTA and China Tourism Academy indicated that 58.7% of Chinese tourists retrieved information from Internet (CNTA & China Tourism Academy, 2011).
Chinese travel agencies are an important medium of communication between destinations and tourists. Unfortunately, destination information is not always correctly transferred to tourists because of poorly trained employees, which is a paramount problem in the current Chinese tourism industry (Zhang & Wu, 2004). Partly because of the low threshold for entry into the agency business, people from various education backgrounds of different levels have been recruited into agencies as the scope and volume of travel agencies has expanded dramatically in recent years. Travel agencies feel reluctant to put more effort to train new employees because of the high mobility and labour turnover of their staff. As a result the majority of sales personnel only possess a superficial knowledge about any given destination. To tackle this issue the Australia Tourist Commission first launched an “Aussie Specialist Program” for sales personnel and tour managers in 2001. This was followed by South Africa Tourism which started to provide “Fundi” tourism courses to Chinese tourism industries in 2005. These instructions, if obtained, are helpful in obtaining a better knowledge about the destination they are selling, which becomes a powerful weapon when communicating with potential tourists. There is a view, however, that only a minority of zealous and assiduous staff are willing to spend time in intensive study; and the majority of
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people are eager to gain quick success and instant benefits (Shenyang Institute of Engineering, 2005).
Guide books for overseas destinations have grown rapidly with the rapid growth of outbound travel. Originally, these books were directly translated from English versions written by western independent tourists, such as the Lonely Planet and
Gio Globe Trotter series. Many Chinese tourists consult these guide books for FIT
travel, but often feel they are sometimes misleading because the perceptions and demands of western people differ from those of Chinese people. With millions of Chinese tourist travelled overseas, more first-hand experience were published recently, such as “backpack years, my job is travel” which initiated a heated response when first posted on Internet. The young author is also a celebrity blogger.
Tourism information can be found from other printed media, such as newspapers, magazines, and brochures. Potential customers are tired with large numbers of advertisements, especially of homogeneous products with the same price from different travel agencies. Instead, some in-depth discussion about a destination, or personal travel experience are welcomed by readers. Because each different magazine has a different target market, destination promotions need to identify their own target market and decide which magazine is better related to their specific market.
Tourism fairs and exhibitions became a marketplace for selling destinations (Zhang, 2006). A large number of travel and tourism fairs and exhibitions have been and continue to be held in China in recent years, but most failed to attract significant number of foreign exhibitors. CITM (China International Travel Mart) is by far the largest one in Asia in terms of exhibitors and spectators. CITM has been organized annually by Shanghai and Kunming alternatively (Arlt, 2006). The majority of exhibitors only focus on travel agencies, although organizations of these fairs and exhibitions normally leave time for mass visitors. Brochures published by tourism destinations are authoritative information and valuable documents for tourists, but only a few potential tourists can directly get these documents from travel fairs.
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Watching TV is a favorite past time activity for families. Since 95% of all Chinese have access to TV, it is by far the most popular medium for relaxation among Chinese (Arlt, 2006; Sparks & Pan, 2009). When Zhengda TV show started in China Central Television in 1990, overseas travel was still a new phenomenon to Chinese people. Caught by what became a well-known catch- phrase, “you don’t know as you have not seen - the world is really fantastic”, which was repeatedly mentioned by the host, Chinese people were attracted by its coverage of the outside world. Nowadays, nearly every TV station has a tourism channel which provides destination related programmes, often sponsored by NTOs, or airlines (Arlt, 2006).
One’s peer group is by far the most significant information source for Chinese people (Sparks & Pan, 2009). Chinese society was rooted in Confucianism, which places high importance on kinship. Thus Chinese people tend to trust ‘in-group’ members while having low trust of ‘out-group’ persons (Blok, 2002). When official media and commercials are considered as “propaganda”, Chinese people put their trust in their relatives and peer groups (Arlt, 2006). Thus word-of-mouth is the most important information source for destination choice for Chinese tourists (World Tourism Organization, 2003). With the growth in number of outbound tourists, the number of friends available for foreign destinations also grow among peer groups (Arlt, 2006). These friends can be friends from ‘true life’, but may also be friends from a virtual world on the Internet.
In urban areas of China, the Internet has become a part of life and the main source of information for a considerable amount of people who are travel enthusiasts, as well as Internet users (World Tourism Organization, 2003). In 2008, Internet users in China reached about 253 million, placing it ahead of the United States as the world’s largest Internet market (CNNIC, 2010). Censorship by the Chinese government is commonly mentioned as the main obstacle that prevents Chinese people from acquiring outside information. However, language is another important factor limiting access to foreign websites. Although educated Chinese have the ability to understand information in English, information in the Chinese language is always the choice of preference. As a result, Chinese websites are the main information source for Chinese Internet users (Sparks & Pan, 2009). It is
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necessary for a tourism destination to establish a Chinese version website to enhance the brand value and draw more Chinese readers (Arlt, 2006). First, when Chinese potential tourists search information in Chinese, it helps if the Chinese version website can be located by Chinese search engines. Second, the use of Chinese language displays a sense of welcoming Chinese tourists (Arlt, 2006).