On Intercultural Competence Of Hangzhou Residents And Tourism Practitioners

In June of2011, the long-awaited news of West Lake’s successful entry into the World Heritage List was really exciting and inspiring to Hangzhou people. Meanwhile, it brought great challenges to Hangzhou residents and those working in the tourism industry. It is quite possible there will be increased numbers of foreign visitors because of the successful entry. However, will Hangzhou people be prepared to host them? How is their intercultural competence?This thesis explores the intercultural competence of Hangzhou residents and tourism practitioners through observation, data collection and analysis. The research subjects of many definitions and models on intercultural competence previous are those who study or live abroad. This thesis reviews the concepts of intercultural competence, the models and the assessment tools. Then it adopts both quantitative and qualitative methods to describe and analyze the intercultural competence of Hangzhou residents and tourism practitioners through the data collected from interviews and survey. The issue has been examined from cognitive, affective and behavior perspectives.Three conclusions have been reached. First, Hangzhou residents and tourism practitioners have an acceptable intercultural competence for having passed the test in the survey; second, the tourism practitioners’intercultural communicative competence is better than those of the residents’; third, Hangzhou’s successful entry into the World Heritage List has a positive effect on the intercultural competence of both Hangzhou residents and tourism practitioners.What’s more, the thesis provides suggestions on the training and improvement of intercultural competence for Hangzhou people.