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This study aims to provide insights into Airbnb’s exit from the China market, specifically from the perspective of platform competition.

Based on the understanding of the evolution and competition of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation market in China and the double-edged network effects, this viewpoint article provides an in-depth discussion on Airbnb’s withdrawal from the China market.

This viewpoint paper contends that Airbnb faced increasing challenges in establishing unique competitive advantages against local rivals, who demonstrate a capacity for innovation and maintaining loyal customers in adapting to the market evolution. Consequently, this may inhibit Airbnb from attracting the mainstream market and lead Airbnb into a negative spiral, exacerbated by indirect network effects.

This study offers insights into the failure of an internationalisation process, drawing from an analysis of the competitive environment and the competition strategies of P2P accommodation platforms in China. These findings have practical implications for the implementation of international business strategies in P2P accommodation.

本观点文章旨在基于平台竞争的视角对爱彼迎退出中国的现象进行阐释

基于对中国共享住宿/民宿市场的演变和竞争、双边网络效应的理解, 本文对爱彼迎退出中国进行了深入探讨。

本文提出, 爱彼迎在建立独特竞争优势以应对本地竞争对手方面面临日益严峻的挑战, 因为本地竞争者在适应市场变化方面展现出突出的创新和留客的能力。这可能会阻碍爱彼迎吸引主流市场, 并导致其跌入由间接网络效应加剧的恶性循环中。

基于对中国共享住宿平台的竞争环境和策略的分析, 本文洞悉了一个国际化失败的案例。本文的发现对于共享住宿的国际化策略实施具有实践意义。

Este artículo de opinión pretende aportar ideas sobre la salida de Airbnb del mercado chino, concretamente desde la perspectiva de la competencia entre plataformas.

Basándonos en la comprensión de la evolución y la competencia del mercado de alojamientos P2P en China, así como en los “efectos de red de doble filo”, este artículo de opinión ofrece una discusión en profundidad sobre la retirada de Airbnb del mercado chino.

Este documento sostiene que Airbnb enfrentó desafíos crecientes para establecer ventajas competitivas únicas frente a sus rivales locales, demostrando estos últimos una capacidad de innovación y del mantenimiento de la lealtad de sus clientes al adaptarse a la evolución del mercado. En consecuencia, esto puede inhibir a Airbnb para atraer al mercado principal y llevar a la empresa a una espiral negativa, exacerbada por efectos de red indirectos.

Este estudio ofrece una visión del fracaso de un proceso de internacionalización, a partir de un análisis del entorno competitivo y de las estrategias de competencia de las plataformas de alojamiento P2P en China. Estos resultados tienen implicaciones prácticas para la aplicación de estrategias empresariales internacionales en los alojamientos P2P.

This study aims to identify key factors influencing Chinese domestic travelers’ behaviors in hotel selection from a pool of budget hotel attribute-based factors and customer personal characteristics and determine the extent to which these factors impact on domestic Chinese travelers’ hotel selection preferences.

This study uses a discrete choice experimental design and a multinomial logit model to examine the key influential factors contributing to Chinese domestic travelers’ choice behavior to budget hotels. Both hotel attribute-based and personal trait factors were tested.

Results indicate that location, price and business functions were factors influencing guest choice behavior. For budget hotels, being located in the traditional central business districts and having a restaurant would leverage guest preference to stay. Among consumers’ personal characteristics, income, occupation, purpose of travel, personal attitude and past experience were found to be determinants of guest choice behavior.

This study contributes to the understanding of Chinese domestic travelers’ choice behaviors toward budget hotels and offers insights for industry practitioners to better design budget hotel products and service.

This research is the first that integrates hotel attributes with travelers’ characteristics and quantitatively evaluate the determinants affecting hotel choice behavior in China. The insights are of value academically to our understanding of cognitive mechanism underlying choice behavior.

Thailand has served as a major outbound tourist destination for Chinese tourists for decades. Behaviours demonstrated by Chinese tourists in Thailand are believed to have created an image of Chinese outbound tourists among the residents and have impacted on the sustainability of Thai tourism. This study aims to contribute a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the image of Chinese outbound tourists from the perspective of Thai residents’.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 Thai residents who have frequent contact with Chinese tourists.

The results reveal that Thai residents’ perceptions of Chinese tourists include both positive and negative images. Positive images consist of being filial and friendly (e.g. taking good care of the elderly and having close emotional ties within their touring group) and being wealthy and auspicious (e.g. having a lot of money to spend and tipping generously). Negative images include moral norms (e.g. making loud noises and jumping into a queue), hygiene habits (e.g. littering and spitting) and religious culture (e.g. touching and climbing Buddha statues).

This qualitative research promotes the study of destination residents’ perceptions of tourists’ in the context of outbound tourism and enriches the application of social representation theory from the perspective of residents in the field of tourism marketing. It generates a more nuanced comprehension of Thai residents’ perceptions of Chinese tourists, contributes to the government’s formulation of guidelines for civilised tourism and has benefits to the sustainable development of tourism destinations.

泰国居民对中国游客的形象感知

摘要

几十年来, 泰国一直是中国游客的主要出境旅游目的地。中国游客在泰国表现出的行为在居民中创造了中国出境游客的形象, 并影响了泰国旅游业的可持续性。这项研究旨在从泰国居民的感知出发, 对中国出境游客的形象进行更全面、细致的了解。

对15位经常与中国游客接触的泰国居民进行了深入访谈。

结果表明, 泰国居民对中国游客形象的感知既包括正面形象也包括负面形象。正面的形象包括孝顺和友善（例如, 照顾老人, 并在其旅行团中保持紧密的情感联系）, 富有和吉祥（例如, 有很多钱可花, 并慷慨地付小费）, 而负面的形象则包括道德规范（例如, 大声喧哗, 并插队）, 卫生习惯（例如, 乱扔垃圾和随地吐痰）以及宗教文化（例如, 触摸和爬到佛像上）。

这项定性研究弥补了出境旅游背景下目的地居民对游客形象的感知的差距, 并且从居民的角度出发丰富了社会表象理论在旅游营销领域的应用。它使泰国居民对中国游客的认识更加细致, 有助于政府制定有针对性的文明旅游指导方针, 有利于旅游目的地未来的可持续发展。

Percepción de los residents tailandeses sobre el comportamiento de los turistas chinos

Por décadas, Tailandia ha sido un principal destino tulístico de turismo emisor para los turistas chinos.El comportamiento de los turistas chinos en Tailandia ha impresionado las imagenes de los turistas chinos emisores a los habitantes, y ha afectado la sostenibilidad de la industria turística de Tailandia. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo comenzar con la percepción de los habitantes tailandeses para conocer una comprensión más completa y detallada de las imagenes de los turistas chinos emisores.

Entrevisitar en profundidad a 15 habitantes tailandeses que a menudo contactan con los turistas chinos.

Los resultados muestran, las percepciones de los habitantes tailandeses de las imagenes de los turistas chinos contienen las imagenes positivas y negativas. Los imágenes positivas incluyen fiedad filial y amabilidad (por ejemplo, cuida a los ancianos y mantiene una estrecha conexión emocional con su grupo de viaje), riqueza y buena suerte (Por ejemplo, tiene mucho dinero para gastar y propina generosa.) pero las imagenes negativas incluyen las normas étias (por ejemplo, hace ruido fuerte y corta en línea.) los hábitos de higienes (por ejemplo, tira basura al azar y escupiendo por todas partes.) y cultura religiosa (por ejemplo, toca y trepa los estatuas de Buda.)

Esta investigación cualitativa cierra la brecha en los percepciones de los habitantes de desino de las imagenes de turistas en el contexto del turisimo emisor y comenza con los aspectos de los habitantes enriquece la aplicación de la teoría de la representación social en el campo de marketing turístico. Deja los habitantes tailanteses conocer a los turistas chinos más detallada y ayuda al gobierno a desarrollar pautas específicas de turismo civilizado y es benificioso para el futuro desarrollo sostenible de los destinos turísticos.

This paper aims to contemplate the past development of backpacker tourism research and assess the future development of backpacker tourism research.

The authors evaluate the research on backpacker tourism in the past in the following three aspects, namely, research themes, research methods and geographical and cultural contexts of research.

Backpackers and backpacker tourism have been evolving in the past 75 years, just as other groups of travelers and forms of travel have. With the rapid pace of globalization in our time, backpacker tourism and its kinship forms will remain an important international tourism phenomenon, with root reasons in different types of economies and societies. As such, it will remain to be a significant research subject for tourism researchers in the future.

This paper contemplates the past development and assesses the future development of backpacker tourism research.

This study aims to examine the demographic differences of Chinese nationals’ travel experience sharing through different offline and online platforms.

Cross-tabulation analysis was applied on a national sample of 6081 respondents in China.

The study found that Chinese women tend to share travel experience more often than Chinese men; old people in China tend to use the face-to-face approach more than online or social media to share their travel experience. About 66.5 per cent of the survey sample used WeChat Moments to share their travel experience, highlighting WeChat as the dominating social media platform in China for travel sharing. In general, people who share via online platforms (WeChat, Weibo, QQ Space) tend to be young, single or unmarried, well-educated and earning a high monthly income.

The study offers an in-depth understanding of travel experience sharing idiosyncrasies in China.

This study aims to examine the effects of three aspects of perceived advantage (i.e. time-saving, money-saving and convenience) on Chinese consumers’ continuance usage intention and behavior of using tourism mobile applications (apps) in the context of Chinese society and culture.

Survey data were collected at 20 key tourist attractions in Jinan, China from tourists who visit the attractions. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypothetical model.

Empirical findings revealed that time-saving directly affected consumers’ continuance usage intention but did not influence user behavior; on the contrary, money-saving had a direct effect on user behavior, but not on intention. Convenience was found to affect both intention and behavior and had a much stronger total effect on user behavior than time-saving and money-saving.

The study findings offer insights into the further development of tourism mobile apps. While money-saving can be an effective marketing offer for user adoption of tourism mobile apps, tourism mobile apps operators should further tap into the value of time and convenience in designing and developing tourism mobile apps.

The study expands on practical knowledge of Chinese consumers’ behavior toward using tourism apps.

This study aims to explore the heterogeneity of the tourist market for people with a physical disability (PwPD) based on travel barriers, to serve them better, from a tourism marketing perspective.

A market segmentation analysis was conducted on a sample of 480 PwPD in Sichuan Province, China, based on their perceived travel barriers. Data were obtained through three on-site and four online surveys. A four-step factor-item mixed segmentation, including factor analysis, cluster analysis, discriminant analysis and chi-square tests, was applied to examine the differences among PwPD tourist market segments in terms of various demographic characteristics, disability conditions (e.g. duration of disabilities and causes of impairment) and travel features (e.g. travel frequency and tourist destinations).

This study revealed that the PwPD tourist market is heterogeneous due to individual perceived travel barriers. Three market segments were identified, namely, the Explorer Moderates group, the Explorer Minimals group and the Explorer Intensives group. Additionally, the three market segments were found to have significant differences in terms of travel barriers, demographic characteristics, travel features and disability conditions.

This research provides suggestions for authorities and private entities to optimize the layout of accessible facilities in public areas for the benefit of all. It also offers crucial implications for tourism marketers to determine the key facets of marketing, for travel organizers to evolve the organization of travel groups for PwPD, and for practitioners to provide personalized tourism services.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to apply perceived travel barriers as a market segmentation criterion in understanding PwPD as a heterogeneous travel market. The findings of this study initially expand the scope of application of the travel barrier model and deepen understanding of the Chinese PwPD tourist market from a marketing perspective. The study results elucidated the heterogeneity and characteristics of this market through a four-step factor-item mixed segmentation approach, offering new insights into the behaviors and experiences of travelers with disabilities.

本研究旨在探索肢体残障人士旅游市场的异质性, 以便从旅游营销的角度更好地为他们服务。

基于对中国四川480名肢残人士出游障碍感知的问卷调查, 探索了肢残人士的旅游市场细分。数据是通过七次现场和在线调查获得; 采用四步因子-项目混合细分法, 根据残障状况、人口统计特征和旅游特征, 识别出肢残群体旅游细分市场之间的差异。

研究发现, 基于个体感知的出游障碍, 肢残群体旅游市场是异质的, 研究确定了三个细分市场, 即低度、中度和高度受限群体。三个细分市场在出行障碍、人口特征、出游特征和残障状况方面存在显著差异。

这项研究有助于政府管理部门优化公共区域无障碍设施布局; 旅游营销者确定营销的重点, 并为旅游组织者设计肢残旅游团体成员构成, 以及从业者提供个性化旅游服务提供重要的启示。

论文首次将感知出游障碍作为市场细分标准, 用以理解肢残群体作为异质游客市场。本研究的发现拓展了出游障碍模型的应用范围, 并从市场营销的角度加深了对中国肢残游客市场的理解。研究结果通过四步因子-项目混合细分方法阐明了该市场的异质性和特点, 为肢残游客的行为和体验研究提供了新见解。

Este estudio explora la heterogeneidad del mercado turístico de las personas con discapacidad física (PcDF) en función de las barreras percibidas para viajar, con el fin de prestarles un mejor servicio desde una perspectiva de marketing turístico.

Se realizó un análisis de segmentación de mercado en una muestra de 480 PcDF en Sichuan, China, en función de las barreras que percibían para viajar. Los datos se obtuvieron a través de tres encuestas in situ y cuatro encuestas en línea. Se aplicó una segmentación mixta factor-ítem de cuatro pasos que incluye análisis factorial, análisis de conglomerados, análisis discriminante y pruebas de chi-cuadrado para examinar las diferencias entre los segmentos del mercado turístico de PcDF, en términos de diversas características demográficas, condiciones de discapacidad (por ejemplo, duración de la discapacidad, causas de la discapacidad) y características de los viajes (por ejemplo, frecuencia de viaje, destinos turísticos).

Este estudio reveló que el mercado turístico de las PcDF es heterogéneo debido a las barreras de viaje percibidas por cada individuo. Se identificaron tres segmentos de mercado, a saber, el grupo de Exploradores Moderados, el grupo de Exploradores Mínimos y el grupo de Exploradores Intensivos. Los tres segmentos de mercado presentaban diferencias significativas en cuanto a las barreras para viajar, las características demográficas, las características del viaje y las condiciones de discapacidad.

Este estudio es el primero en aplicar las barreras percibidas para viajar como criterio de segmentación de mercado para comprender a las PcDF como un mercado turístico heterogéneo. Los hallazgos de este estudio amplían inicialmente el ámbito de aplicación del modelo de barreras para viajar y profundizan en la comprensión del mercado turístico chino de PcDF desde una perspectiva de marketing. Los resultados de nuestro estudio explicaron la heterogeneidad y las características de este mercado a través de un enfoque de segmentación mixta factor-ítem de cuatro pasos, contribuyendo a la literatura sobre el comportamiento y las experiencias de los viajeros con discapacidad.

Esta investigación proporciona sugerencias para que las autoridades y las entidades privadas puedan optimizar la disposición de instalaciones accesibles en zonas públicas en beneficio de todos. También ofrece implicaciones importantes a los comercializadores turísticos para que determinen aspectos clave del marketing, a los organizadores de viajes para que evolucionen en la organización de grupos de viaje para PcDF y a los profesionales para que presten servicios turísticos personalizados.

Networks linking tourist attractions or organizations are a major focus of tourism research. Despite extensive research on tourism networks, academic research on the spatial structure and formation of wine tourism networks is limited. This study aims to investigate the spatial structure and factors influencing the development of a network among Ningxia wineries, an emerging wine tourism destination in China.

This study uses social network analysis to uncover “what” the spatial structure of wine tourism networks looks like. Sixteen in-depth interviews were conducted among key stakeholders to explain the “why” of such structural characteristics.

The results show that in an emerging wine tourism destination, popular tourist attractions enjoy high centrality and hold key positions in the wine tourism network. Small wineries exhibit high closeness centrality, and only one winery serves as a network broker. According to the stakeholders, the importance of network actors will increase as their economic and political importance increase, while small wineries that lack differentiation in the network may perish.

Local governments can implement the suggested measures for improving network connections, and wineries are advised to find suitable positions to improve the experiences of tourists.

This study pioneers the identification of the distinct structure and factors influencing the network of an emerging wine tourism destination, thus enriching the understanding of the interplay and roles of different actors.

This study aims to conceptualize the dimensions of resilient leadership and develop the resilient leadership scale (RLS) through three studies.

In Study 1, based on interviews with 77 leaders and 8 junior employees, a seven-factor resilient leadership model was constructed. In Study 2, exploratory factor analysis (n = 237) was conducted to refine the initial items. In Study 3, confirmatory factor analysis (n = 610) was performed to validate the dimensional structure identified in Study 2, and different types of validity of the RLS were assessed.

The validated RLS composed of seven dimensions: contingency planning, improvisation, adaptive instructing, contingency control, emergency care, adjustment recovery and mutual growth. The scale showed desirable measurement qualities in terms of reliability and validity. Resilient leadership and its dimensions significantly impact employee turnover intentions and employee resilience.

This research contributes to the literature on the resilience of hospitality and tourism enterprises and enriches the research scope and theoretical framework of resilient leadership.

This research revealed the resilient leadership responses to crisis in hospitality and tourism enterprises with practical implications for tourism enterprise leaders to deal with major crisis.

This paper aims to examine the effect of consumer inertia – a tendency to adhere to prior purchase decisions despite the existence of preferable alternatives – on the relationships between switching costs and customer retention, and explain the controversy within them in the context of budget hotels.

An empirical test was conducted via structural equation modelling based on 337 self-administered questionnaires from customers at six of Chinese popular budget hotels.

Consumer inertia was a significant mediator between switching costs and customer retention. Specifically, consumer inertia completely mediated the effects of financial switching costs on customer retention, but partially did between procedural switching costs and customer retention. By introducing consumer inertia, the explanatory power of customer retention improved significantly by 19%.

This paper clarifies the effects of multiple dimensions of switching costs on customer retention via the mediating role of consumer inertia and partly addresses the inconsistency in the prior studies from an inertia perspective.