American tourists to China: A marketing perspective of perceived tourism quality in China

This dissertation research is designed to study the attitudes of Americans who have visited China before and those who have not been to China but have the plans to visit in the next few years. The general purposes of the study are to: (1) identify the attitudes of American visitors and potential visitors toward China as a tourist destination, i.e., the image of China, and compare the differences between the actual visitors and potential visitors with regard to their perceptions of the tourism services in China. (2) examine the factors that may have important impact on the tourists' attitude about China, and segment the tourist market based upon their perceptual differences. (3) provide a theoretical framework for understanding the dynamic relationship between tourism quality, image and market segmentation.;One hundred and forty-six subjects' responses to 18 questions in the survey questionnaire were examined and analyzed through different procedures. The utilization of Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) has provided both statistically and philosophically meaningful solutions for testing hypotheses and providing explanations.;Based upon extensive search and review of literature, a conceptual framework has been established in this research regarding the impact of object reality and subject reality on the visitors' perception of tourism quality. The MDS solution has revealed that, among many factors, the previous travel experiences have significant influence in the American tourists' attitudes toward China's tourism "product".;This study has also identified major image dimensions for both subject groups (actual visitors and potential visitors) through several ALSCAL procedures. The degree of differences between these two groups were examined via Confirmatory MDS, a method that can be used to assess the match between a fixed configuration and a derived configuration based upon the goodness-of-fit measures.;Overall, this research has provided some perspectives for understanding tourism development issues. It is expected that this study can provide useful reference for China and other countries in their effort of promoting tourism development.