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Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2011 pp 139–150Cite as

Travel Preferences of Overseas Destinations by Mainland Chinese Online Users

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Abstract

Despite the financial crisis in the second half of 2008 together with the global outbreak of Influenza A H1N1 in 2009, Mainland China’s (hereafter known as China) outbound tourism continued to grow steadily. The rapid development of the Chinese economy is the major force propelling the development of sustainable outbound tourism. Other factors, such as a consistent policy about the expansion of outbound destinations and on-going improvement in living standards have provided good motivations for the growth of the Chinese outbound tourism. Therefore, understanding the travel preferences of Chinese travellers is regarded as one of the important issues in tourism businesses worldwide. Along with the rapid development of Internet applications in China, the Internet is a new way for Chinese travellers to search and share travel information. Due to the growing size of Chinese online users, the Internet becomes the most resourceful medium to understand consumers from this huge market. This paper presents the findings of a study that investigates the travel preferences of Chinese online users by collecting data from Elong.com and Ctrip.com, representing the major and the most popular travel websites in China. Research findings are expected to make a meaningful contribution to better understand what Chinese online users like to visit.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    Crystal Ip, Catherine Cheung, Rob Law & Norman Au

Authors
  1. Crystal Ip
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  2. Catherine Cheung
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  3. Rob Law
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  4. Norman Au
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hotel & Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

    Rob Law

  2. European Tourism Research Inst. (ETOUR), Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden

    Matthias Fuchs

  3. Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

    Francesco Ricci

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Ip, C., Cheung, C., Law, R., Au, N. (2011). Travel Preferences of Overseas Destinations by Mainland Chinese Online Users. In: Law, R., Fuchs, M., Ricci, F. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2011. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0503-0_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0503-0_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7091-0502-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-0503-0

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