Research On The Interactive Behavior And Experience Value Of Family Tourism

In modern society,with the improvement of material civilization and living standard,the acceleration of work and life pace also brings spiritual tension,depression and emotional alienation.Family tourism,which gives people the opportunity to release their individuality,body,mind and family comfort,has become an important leisure and life style for modern families.In family tourism,family tourists not only invest time and money,but also emotional investment.Then what kind of value does family tourism bring to the family tourists?It's a question worth thinking about.The existing evaluation of tourists,experience quality is mostly judged from tourist satisfaction and re-patronage willingness,which can only reflect the overall evaluation of tourists' experience quality,but can't reflect the value and significance of tourists' acquisition from tourism.Experience value is not only reflected in the perception and evaluation of experience quality,but also reflects the usefulness and significance of experience to the experiencer,which is a matter of concern for the further development of the tourism industry.How does the experience value of family tourists have been created?The value co-creation theory holds that value arises from the interaction process rather than the product or service itself,interaction is the core of value co-creation,and the relevant groups in the value network are involved in value creation.In family tourism,family tourists are influenced by both the family situation and the tourism situation,and the interaction behavior is more special than the general tourism interaction.In addition to the interaction within the family,family tourists also meet with other diverse groups of people and interact with each other in a variety of ways.Then,what impact will these interactions have on the experience value?Based on this,this article tries to answer these following questions:What kind of interactive behavior do the family tourists have in the family tourism situation?What kind of experience value can family tourists gain?How does family tourism interactive behavior affect the experience value of family tourists?How to improve the experience value of the family tourists?This paper takes family tourists as the research object,and takes the relationship between family tourism interaction and experience value as the link,mainly studies the following contents:First,qualitative research is conducted to explore the structural dimensions of family tourism interaction and experience value;Second,it explores the impact mechanism and relationship model of family tourism interaction behavior and experience value;Third,the relationship model and related hypotheses are analyzed and tested;Fourth,this paper proposes strategies to enhance the experience value of family tourism.Following the logical thinking of "asking questions—theory and qualitative analysis——building model——quantitative verification——conclusion suggestion",this paper uses these methods of depth interviews,online travel notes and questionnaire to collect sample data,conducts depth interviews with 24 travelling families,selects 36 family travel notes,collects 574 effective questionnaires,adopts critical incident method,content analysis,structural equation and regression analysis for qualitative and quantitative analysis,the main conclusions are as follows:First,the interactive behavior of family tourism contains rich theoretical connotations.Based on the theory of value co-creation,interactive behavior of family tourists is the process of family tourists participating in value creation together with others,including family members to co-create a unique travel experience for themselves and their families.The interactive behavior of family tourism is a process in which family tourists realize the construction of their family roles and social roles.The interpersonal relationship in family tourism clearly shows a spread network centered on self and family.Family tourism is characterized by ritual and interaction ritual.It is a ceremonial activity experienced by family members in different places.Through this ritual like baptism,family members enhance their sense of identity and emotional energy,and have family collective memory.Second,the family tourism interactive behavior structure system consists of four dimensions,the social support structure system consists of two dimensions,and the experience value structure system consists of three dimensions.Using the critical incident method,236 key interactive events which influencing the quality of tourism experience are extracted from the materials of depth interviews and online travel notes.The interactive behavior scale of family tourism includes 4 dimensions:affection interaction,service interaction,social interaction and contradictory conflict,as well as 15 measurement indexes,such as sharing,travel consultation,social communication with other tourists,overcharging and cheating and so on.Based on social support theory and existing research,combined with the specific content of family tourism interaction behavior,the social support scale of family tourism includes two dimensions:instrumental social support and relational social support,as well as 6 measurement indicators,such as experience and advice,information and knowledge,respect,recognition and so on.Based on the existing literature,qualitative analysis of the family tourists' psychological characteristics from big data statistics and depth interviews,this paper designs the experience value scale of family tourism,which including 3 dimensions,such as functional experience value,cognitive experience value and emotional experience value,as well as 12 measurement indicators,such as convenience,cost performance,vision,pleasure and so on.All three scales have good reliability and validity by tested.Third,the relationship model of "interactive behavior—social support-experience value" of family tourism has been fully proved its scientific nature from both theoretical and empirical levels.At the theoretical level,based on the theories of social interaction,social exchange,social support and value co-creation,this paper suggests that family tourists obtain the necessary social support resources through various interactive activities to meet their various needs in tourism activities,thus it will affect the perception of their travel experience.At the empirical level,through questionnaires,structural equation models and regression analysis,the results show that:affection interaction,service interaction,and social interaction have significant positive influence on the total experience value.Family affection interaction and social interaction have significant positive influence on functional experience value,cognitive experience value and emotional experience value.Service interaction only has a significant positive effect on functional experience value.The contradiction conflict has significant negative influence on the total experience value,functional experience value,cognitive experience value and emotional experience value.Social support plays an intermediary role in the interaction between different dimensions of interactive behavior and experience value.Fourth,this paper summarizes several tourism behaviors and experience value characteristics of family tourists through quantitative research methods such as in-depth interviews,online travel notes and big data travel statistics reports,as well as quantitative research methods of questionnaire survey and statistical analysis.Female,young and middle-aged people,parent-child tour with the core family are the main force in the family tourism market.Family tourists are generally high educated and most of them live in city.People often travel at weekends,summer and winter vacations,small holidays and the National Day.They often stay no longer than one week in tourist areas and mainly take provincial tour or domestic trans-provincial tour.Family tourists prefer to these destinations such as seaside resorts,rural resorts,mountain resorts and hot spring resorts,etc.Most family tourists travel for relax,enjoying scenery,accompanying with family members,increasing the sense of knowledge,visiting relatives and friends and so on.The higher the education is,the higher the experience value is.The degree of interaction between women and their family is higher than that of men,but the degree of service interaction and conflict is lower than that of men,and the experience value of male is generally higher than that of female.The experience value of the elderly is generally low.Retirees,self-employed workers,and tourists in relatively closed sites are prone to making confliction.The experience value of family tourists mainly focuses on three aspects:functional evaluation,cognitive evaluation and internal emotion,which shows the characteristics of hierarchy and logic.Based on these researches,this paper respectively has put forward the corresponding strategies to enhance family tourists' experience value from three perspectives of the tourism enterprises,tourism destination and family tourists.From the perspective of tourism enterprises,it is better to promote the transformation of tourism enterprises and tourists from trading relationship to partnership and initiatively absorb the family tourists to participate in the value creation.From the perspective of tourist areas,it is better to highlight the cultural symbols of tourist attractions,improve the participation experience of tourism projects,through building the situation of "third places" to enhance the experience effect of family tourists.From the perspective of family tourists,it is better to promote the sense of ritual of family tourism,family emotional connection and associated memory should be formed,and the family tourism interaction ritual is used to create a harmonious state of tourism,so that family members can gain a high quality experience.This study has the following five aspects of innovation:First,using experience value as a measurement index to evaluate the experience quality of family tourism can better reflect the essence of tourism phenomenon,and also can reflect the value and meaning of family tourism in a more specific and comprehensive way.Second,through the qualitative research,the interactive scale of family tourism is complied to make up the insufficiency of the research on the interaction behavior in the field of tourism.Third,from the interdisciplinary perspective of sociology and management,we understand the interactive behavior of family tourism and propose that the interactive behavior is the process of value co-creation.It highlights the active role of tourists in the subject status and value creation,and triggers the attention to the dynamic elements in tourism situation.Fourth,it is different from the previous researches on individual tourists.This paper focuses on the study of group tourists in specific situations.It regards family tourism as a ritual activity,and studies collective behavior and tourism experience of family tourists as a unit.Fifth,this paper constructs a relational model of "interactive behavior—social support—experience value",which combines the external interaction behavior of family tourists with the intrinsic experience value,and it reveals the intrinsic driving force and effect of interactive behavior.The theoretical significance of this study lies in:First,it explores the structural dimensions of family tourism interactive behavior that will enrich the research on the theoretical system of interactive tourism.Second,it deepens the research of experience value in the tourism field and enriches the evaluation method of tourism experience quality.Third,it analyzes the relationship between family tourism interaction and experience value from the perspective of social support,and expands the theoretical and empirical research on the relationship between tourism interactive behavior and experience value.The practical significance of this study lies in:First,it can inspire the tourist industry to pay close attention to family tourists' interactive behavior in order to create better tourism interaction situations.Second,family tourism market can target their product designing and marketing,and improve the experience quality of family tourists.