Author: Chui, Xiao Qing Joyce
Title: A fundamental change in host's perspectives towards the mainland Chinese tourists
Advisors: Law, Rob (SHTM)
Degree: DHTM
Year: 2015
Subject: Tourists -- China.
Tourists -- China -- Attitudes.
Consumer behavior -- China.
Culture conflict.
Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations
Department: School of Hotel and Tourism Management
Pages: vii, 226 pages
Language: English
Abstract: This study addressed the question of why many people of the host tourism destinations in developed countries/areas have not been willing to accept and accommodate the Mainland Chinese tourists. By focusing on the social aspect of tourism, this study adopted the concepts and theories of sociology and social psychology to find out the factors that had hampered the development of positive relations between the hosts and the guests, and to examine how these factors have shaped the perceptions and attitudes of the hosts towards the guests. With information collected from in-depth interviews with a number of Hong Kong residents and some autobiographies and memoirs written by Mainland Chinese authors, the root of the problem is identified as the ethnocentric mentality of the hosts that commonly generalises and derogates all the Mainland Chinese tourists as a group of people with inferior status. Based on such analysis, this study proposed some solutions to solve the problem from the root. Developing an ethnorelative mentality for people who were born in and after the mid 1990s during their schooling years was considered an effective approach to counteract the influence of ethnocentrism that had been prevailing in the Western society. Educational materials that introduced the contemporary and modern history of Mainland China and educational activities that encouraged direct and equal contacts with a diversified range of Mainland Chinese people were suggested as essential methods to cultivate pluralistic thinking of youngsters so that they would be equipped with an ability to understand and accommodate people with different cultural backgrounds. Only by changing the host's perspectives towards the Mainland Chinese tourists fundamentally,could they develop a sense of empathy towards the Mainland Chinese tourists, become willing to understand the causes of their behaviours, and eventually accommodate and welcome them. At the same time, by acknowledging the hurdles on the road to replace ethnocentrism with ethnorelativism, this study emphasised the urgency of implementing the solutions proposed, for any further delay would simply produce new generations of people who might carry on the ethnocentric tradition and exacerbate the relations with the Mainland Chinese tourists.
Rights: All rights reserved
Access: restricted access

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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/handle/200/8388