A Study Of The Tourism Development Of International Students In Qingdao

Currently, with the deepening of global economic integration and the globalization ofeducation, many countries have attached great importance to expanding the international education,promoting the exchange of international students and attracting international students in a bid tofacilitate the sustainable economic growth by making good use of global talent resources. At thesame time, the sound and fast socio-economic development and the increased international visibilityof China have resulted in an increasing number of international students studying in China. In2013,as many as356,499oversea students from200countries and regions were studying at746institutions of higher learning, research institutes or other educational agencies in31provinces,autonomous regions or municipalities in China (with the statistics for Taiwan, Hong Kong SAR andMacao SAR excluded), which signals an increase of8.58percent over the year2012. According tothe Study in China Program, greater efforts will be made to reach the goal of attracting half amillion of international students to study here in China by the year2020, and to make China themost attractive destination country for international students in Asia.The international students, whose tuition fees and relevant expenses have brought tremendouseconomic benefits to the destination countries, also facilitate the rise of the large-scalenewly-emerged tourism market which is growing rapidly. The international students and theirfriends and relatives visiting them also constitute a particular sub-group of tourism consumers withunique preference. The understanding of the tourist behaviors of international students will not onlyenrich the scope of tourist behavioral science, providing fresh insights into the research of theinternational tourist market, but also draw the attention of Chinese tourism sector to this emergingmarket. It will also help suppliers of tourism products fully understand the consumption demandand preferences of the international students, thus laying a foundation for the development andformulation of marketing strategies of special tourism products.As a famous international tourist city, Qingdao is a preferred destination of numerousinternational students. This thesis takes the international students and their friends and relatives inQingdao as the object of study. Their tourist behaviors and preferences are studied to explore thecharacteristics of the tourism consumption of the international students. Relevant tourism marketingstrategies are improved and news tourism products are designed accordingly so as to boost thetourism market of the international students. The author of this thesis conducts interview and surveys on some typical international students in Qingdao and carries out a descriptive analysis onthe results, after which statistical analysis software such as SPSS and Excel2007are used to analyzethe factors affecting the tourism activities of international students in China. The factors closelyrelated to the tourism consumption of international students are then figured out. Based on theresearch results, the author finally proposes possible tourism marketing strategies, endowing thesuppliers of tourism products with new ideas to develop tourist market for the international students.Generally speaking, the study is of both theoretical significance and application value.