Author: Zhu, Wei Rong Phoenix
Title: An analysis of important factors affecting Shanghai residents' selection of a travel agency for domestic tourism
Degree: M.Sc.
Year: 2002
Subject: Tourism -- China -- Shanghai
Travel agents -- China -- Shanghai
Tourists -- China -- Shanghai
Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations
Department: Multi-disciplinary Studies
School of Hotel and Tourism Management
Pages: xi, 111 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm
Language: English
Abstract: To gain more knowledge about the market, in the meantime to support industry with feasible investigation, and to help travel industry integrating resource, it is natural to submit this study aiming to identify the important travel agency selection factors in relation to choosing a travel agency for domestic package tours. As perceived by Shanghai residents, and it also aims to identify the factors or attributes that customers consider important when selecting travel agencies for domestic travel. Through this research, it is hoped that this study will be helpful to travel industry and can supply a little correct information to pilot travel agency actualizing appropriate strategies to match market demands. Meanwhile, as for China domestic travel market is only a part of whole travel environment, author implements this research to investigate some underlying factors that dominate the travelers' behavior and ideology. Consequently, it is necessary to create a stable foundation for future research on travel fields. The primary purpose of this study is to conceptually arid empirically determine the important factors affecting Shanghai residentes' selection of travel agency. Through the comprehensive research design, questionnaire delivery and data analysis for travel patterns selection, the study has identified that almost all attributes listed on the questionnaire have a certain degree of importance, amongst which tour security and safety supplying have significant impacts on the Shanghai citizens' travel mode selection at present. The main goals of this study are to assess the perception of Shanghai permanent residents towards domestic travel agency in Shanghai. Besides, it also aims to gain more insight into the dimensions used by travelers evaluating service in travel agencies, and to identify which components of the services delivery system are most important in their judgment. Different statistics methods are used in this study to test the reliabilities of the research. In order to address the perceived importance of travel agency selection attributes by Shanghai permanent residents, the means and standard deviations are calculated. Meanwhile, factor analysis is applied in this study in order to inspect internal relationship existing in separated variables and analyze interactive effect each other among factors. Furthermore, because the specific objectives include assessing the perceived importance of travel agency selection attributes, as well as exploring the relationships among demographics, past travel experience, recognition of Shanghai tourists towards travel environments and travel operation, and underlying travel agency selection attributes. The above-mentioned information is analyzed in details with tabulations in t-test and ANOVA way. In this research, as for self-service and travel agency are two main objectives in study, they are often compared together to analyze whether there are any necessary relationships in travel patterns selection. From the outcome, it reveals that Shanghai citizens attach more importance to the factor of Interactive Ability when they select travel agency as their main travel patterns It is obvious to prove that whatever individual or others' previous tour experience will deeply influence future determinations of trip mode, With this information, travel agencies are expected to tailor-make appropriate marketing strategies to cater for their customers and succeed in competitive environment. That is the most principal value for this explorative study conducted.
Rights: All rights reserved
Access: restricted access

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