Research On Travel Behavior Characteristics Of Undergraduates From Normal Universities

With the increase of government’s supportive efforts foruniversities and colleges and the reform of higher education policy,more and more students are blessed with the opportunity ofbecoming undergraduates. According to the statistic bulletin of thePeople’s Republic of China on national economic and socialdevelopment in2012, there were1,720,000enrolled postgraduatesin universities or research institutes, including590,000newentrants and486,000graduates in a single year. As for GeneralHigher Education, there were6,888,000college enrollment,23,913,000undergraduates and6,247,000graduates included,increasing1,220,000students compared with that of2007[1]. Theincrease in the number of university students has also broughtalong the rapid growth in tourism markets. At present, more researches at home and abroad focus on the behavior, motivationand preference, etc of tourists. However, study on the specialgroup---university students are comparatively less, especially thaton such undergraduates from normal universities with a strongprofessional background. Although more and more products havebeen developed on tourism marketing segmentation, more study isneeded to meet the needs of undergraduates from normaluniversities. With the popularization of nine-year compulsoryeducation and Senior High School education, more students areable to enter colleges. There has been great potential for thedevelopment of tourism marketing for university students, whichhas attracted many expert scholars and enterprises. Therefore, it isof great importance to investigate the travel behaviorcharacteristics of normal university students, analyze the reasonand the present situation of university students tourism market, andgive suggestions on university students tourism, which could helpexpand the students tourism market and also promote the regionaleconomic development.The thesis mainly focuses on those features and differences ofundergraduates from normal universities, with the aim of providingbasis for tourism enterprises to develop tourism market foruniversity students. There are three sections in the thesis: The first section of this thesis is about the travel behaviorcharacteristics of undergraduates from normal universities,consisting of five parts:The first part is a research on travel attitudes and preferences ofundergraduates from normal universities. By means ofquestionnaire and data reduction, we can conclude that moststudents hold an active attitude towards tourism, having a desire totravel outside. Through the analysis of travel resources preference,a conclusion is safely drawn that landscape scenery, ethniccustoms and cooking food are among undergraduates’ favoritetourism projects.The second part is a research on the travel aims and motivationof undergraduates from normal universities. By consultingdocument literature,16tourism motivations are classified into sixcategories. Then the first three tourism motivations ofundergraduates from normal universities can be listed as follows:pleasure and enjoyment, escape and pressure, as well as learningand practice. We can see from the other hand that althoughundergraduates travel for various purposes, escape and pressure isthe most important one.The third part is a research on time and space features ofundergraduates’ tourism from normal universities. By means of empirical study on tourism time and places, we found thatundergraduates always tend to travel on festival and holidays,which is greatly influenced by their study time. As for the choice oftourism goals, the nearest neighboring capital cities tend to attractmost undergraduates. The farther the place, the fewer the studentswho go there for traveling.The fourth part is a research on the tourism consuming behaviorsof undergraduates from normal universities. As mostundergraduates are not equipped with enough economic capabilityto pay, they often choose low level travel services during their trip.The fifth part is a research on travel experience ofundergraduates from normal universities.The second section is mainly an analysis on travel behaviordifferences among undergraduates from normal universities, whichis made up of an analysis on travel behavior differences betweenmass tourism and undergraduates tourism, as well as that withinthe undergraduates travel group, with the latter analyzed from suchaspects as gender, major and grade, etc. The conclusion is drawn bymeans of qualitative and quantitative analysis.The third section focuses on suggestions and countermeasureson tourism problems existing in university students in order toprovide theoretical basis for the development of tourism products. Three suggestions, the development of tourism products, thedepartment management cooperation and the continuous marketdevelopment, are put forward as to the problems existing in travelquality, safety administration and department cooperationrespectively.