hornours英文論文.docx

BA (Hons) International Hospitality Tourism ManagementHonours ProjectA research proposal on the market potential of adventure tourism in Qingdao, ChinaLecturer: Dr. William LeeMatriculation Number: 14011924Words: Submission date: Abstract 3Introduction .4Purpose.5Objective6 Literature review6Hypothesis.8Methodology .9Sampling .9Data Collection 9Data analysis.9Finding.10Limitation.11Ethical considerations .12 Recommendation .12Conclusion 13References 1416Appendix I 17IntroductionChina is a developing country where the economy is growing fast and a large potential tourism market resides. The government has granted the Chinese people greater freedom and convenience to travel (Lau, 2006). According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, in 2014 the domestic tourism has earned 3.03 trillion RMB, which has increased 15.4% compared with 2013, taking up 4.8% of the GDP (NBSC, 2015). The number of domestic tourists has increased from 1,902 million in 2009 to 3,611 million in 2014, rising up by around 90% in five years. In addition, the number of foreign tourists has increased over 400 million in the same period. Telling from the data, it is clear that the tourism industry in China is in its growing phase and the market potential is enormous. Therefore, it would be reasonable to search for innovative opportunities in the development of the tourism industry.Adventure tourism is one of such opportunities. It is a kind of tourism involving exploration where people should expect risks in their travel (Hudson, 2003). An adventure travel should involve two of the following elements: a cultural interaction or exchange, engagement with nature and physical exertion. For example, mountaineering is a typical adventure travel. Although named adventure tourism, very few adventure travelers have rate “risk” as their primary motivation for adventure activities (Buckley, 2012). Instead, the single tangible experience of rush turns out to be the key motivation even in skilled adventure tourism. Previous researches also revealed appreciating the beauty of nature and social benefits as the major motivations for adventure traveling (Pomfret, 2011; Lou, 2014). With regard to these findings, developers should pay attention to minimizing the risk as well as enhancing the entertainment and social functions in adventure tourism projects.Qingdao is one of the best candidates for adventure tourism destinations in China for two reasons. Firstly, it is one of the major tourism cities in China and enjoys developed transportation system. People can travel to Qingdao from most other parts of China conveniently by bullets trains, airplanes and ferries. Inside the city, it is also convenient to travel by buses, subways and even ferries. Nowadays, transportation convenience is one of the key factors that tourists would consider when selecting their travel destination (Min, 2011). Secondly, Qingdao is seaside city blessed with rich tourism resources. It not only has beaches, but also possesses rivers, mountains, a high island and natural caves. In addition, the geographical combination of sea and mountains endues Qingdao with a pleasing climate. With reasonable investment, popular adventure tourism products such as mountaineering expeditions, city exploration, rifting and diving can be developed in Qingdao. While the potential is rich, the adventure tourism in Qingdao is only emerging and few researches on the industry have been conducted. To provide valid estimation of the market potential of adventure tourism in Qingdao and feasible guidelines to investors who are interested in investing in adventure tourism in Qingdao, we drafted this research proposal.PurposeThis proposal aims to facilitate a quantitative research on the market potential of adventure tourism in Qingdao through interviewing and questionnaire investigation. Through the collection and analysis of the data, we can make estimation about the market potential of adventure tourism in Qingdao. We intend to utilize the findings in this research to provide practical advices on the development of adventure tourism in Qingdao. Objectives 1. Identifying which segments of adventure tourism applies to Qingdao in the tourists view and the experts view.2. Exploring the tourists preferences of the research subject in each segment and assessing the financial potential for adventure tourism in Qingdao.3. Assessing the potential of price, product and promotion to be featured in the adventure tourism in Qingdao.Literature reviewThe adventure tourism is a combined bundle of several subcategories, including follows: ecotourism (TIES, 2006), extreme tourism (Baldacchino, 2006), urban exploration (Pinder, 2005), accessible tourism (Darcy, 2006), cultural tourism (Smith, 2009), eco-disaster tourism (Gould & Lewis, 2007), ethno tourism (Vas & Vas, 2003), ghetto tourism (Scheyvens, 2002), and overland tourism (Weber, 2001). Each subcategory has different demands on resources. For example, the eco-disaster tourism requires the destination to be a disaster area. When proposing the development of the adventure tourism, we must consider the actual local situation. In case of Qingdao, apparently it cannot develop eco-disaster tourism, because it is not affected by any disaster. We have identified the following three segments of the adventure tourism that may apply to Qingdao. One of them is the ecotourism, which is defined as responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education. Research reveals ecotourism as a strong power facilitating ecological restoration (Blangy and Mehta, 2006). Qingdao has a rich ecosystem where both sea and mountains present. There is already an established Mashan National Nature Reserve and we deem there is more potential and necessity to develop more ecotourism resources. There is also extreme tourism where the tourists travel to dangerous places or participate in risky activities. A travel can be defined as an extreme travel if it involves at least one extreme sport. Although extreme tourism is disputed for being risk focused and may give an image of irresponsible, researchers have found out that it can help the raise the environmental awareness in its participants thus act positively in the environmental sustainability (Brymer et al, 2009). Qingdao has already developed some extreme sports such as fly boarding, and there is still much potential left to be explored. Another form of adventure tourism that can apply to Qingdao is urban exploration, where the tourist explores artificial structures. This kind of tourism can utilize the existing buildings as the resource and is especially suitable for big cities like Qingdao. There are Qingdao people organizing urban exploring activities online in small groups. We think this kind of activities needs further normalization to avoid creating legal and safety problems. Tourists preferencesBesides identifying applicable segments, another important objective is to explore the tourists preferences for adventure traveling in Qingdao. The term “tourists preferences” refers to the tourists first choice among a bunch of choice set (Brau & Cao, 2006). Tourists preferences are mostly studied by means of choice experiments. In the experiments, we can see how the tourists choice varies according to several key factors. For example, Petersen conducted a study showing the Chinese tourists prefer to travel in groups than to travel alone (Petersen, 2009). Tourists preferences are important references for decision makers to decide what kind of products to be developed and where should be the focus of investment.Marketing elementsMarketing will be the key to commercial success. According to the American Marketing Association, marketing is defined as “the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchange and satisfy individual and organizational objectives” (AMA, 1985). The most credited marketing management is the Four Ps Marketing Mix, namely price, product, place and promotion (Constantinides, 2006). The Four Ps Marketing Mix is to guide marketers to consider from different aspects. “Product” refers to the consideration of consumers demand. In case of the adventure tourism, it should be developed into various forms so as to suit the different consumers demand. For example, to suit the less professional adventure travelers demand, there is soft adventure tourism featured by less physical exertion such as camping and hiking (Beedie& Hudson, 2003).“Price” refers to the consideration of consumers spending power and the price elasticity. For example, travel agencies would usually over price their products and leave some room for discount to achieve the best profit.“Promotion” refers to the communication to consumers through means like advertising and public relations. In tourism, this segment can be identified as tourism fairs, website advertisement etc. “Place”, also referred to as “distribution”, is about to supplying the product at places, which is easy to access for consumers. Place is out of consideration for our research, because the place is restricted to Qingdao. On the other hand, we will have to consider what kind of adventure activities to develop and how much should be the price, as well as how great should the promotion power be. HypothesisWith the previous researches that we reviewed, we have identified our research directions in order to study the aforementioned objectives and make a estimation on the market potential. We herein propose following hypotheses:H1. Qingdao is suitable for ecotourism, extreme tourism and urban exploration development.H2. The tourists have a preference for adventure activities. H3. Qingdao has not developed a good marketing mix of product, price and promotion for its adventure tourism yet. H4. By improving the process management, we can uncover the remaining enormous market potential of the adventure tourism in Qingdao. Methodology Validity and Reliability In our proposed research, we adopt a quantitative research method, involving collecting statistics and mathematical calculations (Given, 2008). The central idea is to quantize and measure the objectives from a representative group of sample. The validity and reliability for the numbers to be generalized to larger populations are dependent on how representative our sample is. Therefore, we must select a relatively large sample group, which can represent the total population. Sampling Our proposed sample size is 100 people. The sample will include 40 tourists, 30 Qingdao students, and 30 Qingdao experts in tourism. The sample is varied by age, income, and occupations. We propose to conduct roadside and questionnaire investigations, each take 25 samples. For online questionnaire investigation, we suggest to seek collaborations with the popular traveling website T (Miguns, 2008). From our sample, we will randomly invite 10 people to a face-to-face interview. Data CollectionWe have designed a questionnaire to cover the topics of interest (refer to Appendix I). For roadside questionnaire investigation, we distribute our questionnaires at random locations in Qingdao and collect the response. For online questionnaire investigation, we will invite our samples to complete this questionnaire online. In order to avoid the participants losing patience, we limit our number of questions to 20 and most of the questions are multiple-choice questions. The responses will be compiled into our comprehensive research data. Data Analysis We adopt excel to compile the participants responses as our data. The data will be analyzed quantitatively. Numeric questions will be analyzed with average number, median number and majority number, in order to study the collective tendency of the tourists. In addition, we will calculate the standard deviation and the variance to assess the divergence in our sample. Non-numeric questions will be analyzed in percentage. The analyzed data will be presented in the forms of tables as well as diagrams for easier understanding.FindingsThrough our data analysis, we will be able to identify which segments of adventure tourism can apply to Qingdao. In addition, we can figure out what are the tourists preferences towards different attributes in the adventure tourism. The assessment on the average spending power can be used to estimate the market potential in the adventure tourism in Qingdao. LimitationsLimitation on the sampling methodThe sample selection involves some randomness. The researcher may not be able to collect a sample that is general enough to represent all the tourists. The structure of the sample age, occupation and income level may not correspond to the actual society structure. In addition, the online sample will be collected from only one website, where the users profiles are to some extent similar thus is not general enough.Limitation on the authenticityQuestionnaire investigations are dependent on the participants memory and perceptions, thus may not be completely reliable (Conrath et al., 1983). In addition, it is possible that the participants provide false information deliberately due to mistrust or lack of patience. Limitation on the timeThe researcher will only be able to conduct the research in a limited time span, whereas the tourists can visit Qingdao whole year round. This will again result in a limitation on the sample profile. On the participants side, their limitation on the time can result in even worse consequences such as false answer. Ethical ConsiderationsThe proposed research is largely dependent on the sensitive private information of tourists, thus it is very crucial to obtain consent from the interviewees on the use of the their data. This is crucial for our sample resource because study shows the privacy protection level can affect customers purchase desire (Tsai et al., 2011) To protect their privacy, we should not collect or keep any of their personal information that can be used for tracing back to their identities. It is also of commercial ethic to gain consent on usage of the database of the website. The researchers must not obtain the data through illegal method. Also, the researchers should not sell the data for profit purpose without obtaining consent from the supplier.Last but not least, for the sake of the greater good, the researchers should avoid suggesting developing ecotourism resources into other types of tourism destination so as to protect the precious ecosystem. RecommendationsWe would like to provide three recommendations to those who conduct this research. The first recommendation is to explore a wider sampling range if the situation allows, for example, social media and other traveling websites. The second recommendation is to consider ecotourism in priority for the sustainable development consideration (Tisdell, 1996). The third recommendation is to adopt an auto computing system for the data compilation to avoid unnecessary errors.ConclusionThis kind of research is of great practical significance. It not only provides market information, but also points out the directions of future study as well as commercial investment. When drafting a research proposal, it is necessary to search past researches for supporting information. Also, it is important to have the ability to identify and analyze the best objectives and propose valid hypotheses.Our proposal is very comprehensive that it covers the topics of what adventure tourism resources Qingdao has, what the tourists preferences are and even down to the details of the price, place, product and promotion. Although we expect some error in the research outcome due to the limitations in our research method, the results will still be instructive for developers decision making. In addition, the proposed research method can be easily applied to similar researches and the difficulty will reduce as more researches have launched. We would genuinely recommend investors to facilitate this research. Reference:American Marketing Association (AMA) 1985, “AMA Board Approves New Marketing Definition”, Marketing NewsBaldacchino, G. (Ed.). (2006).Extreme tourism: Lessons from the worlds cold water islands. Routledge.Beedie, P., & Hudson, S. (2003). Emergence of mountain-based adventure tourism.Annals of tourism research,30(3), 625-643.Blangy, S., & Mehta, H. (2006). Ecotourism and ecological restoration.Journal for Nature Conservation,14(3), 233-236.Brymer, E., Downey, G., & Gray, T. (2009). Extreme sports as a precursor to environmental sustainability.Journal of Sport & Tourism,14(2-3), 193-204.Brau, Rinaldo; Cao, Davide (2006) : Uncovering the Macrostructure of Tourists Preferences. A Choice Experiment Analysis of Tourism Demand to Sardinia, Nota di Lavoro, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, No. 33.2006Buckley