Consumer Behaviour and Tourism

Travelling all around the world

The world’s population is growing by the second. As the economy grows and people’s income get higher the desire to buy more things increases. Those who have more fortune than others spend their income on lavish things. Those who have a middle to high-income on things that satisfy their needs. Those who have little try to get an income to provide for their family. The topic of today is about consumer behavior and tourism. Consumer behavior is the study of an individual person or group of people. The study surrounds itself by the way they select, secure, and use or dispose of a product, service, experience or ideas to satisfy their needs. So basically how a person behaves or thinks when buying something and everything else surrounding the purchase afterwards. We can clearly see the elements of psychology, sociology, marketing and economics playing a role in a persons mind. Here we try to attend to understand an individuals or group’s decision-making process. Most businesses nowadays use Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM). Those are databases used to store information of their customers. The company uses this to see the rate of loyalty, re-purchases and intentions etc. The information collected the company later uses for marketing purposes.

Our main focus right now is about the Chinese consumer behavior. Do they spend money? You bet they do! The millennial have a much higher income than the elderly folks. That is because younger people study hard to find a good job that pays well. Elderly folks didn’t go to school and don’t have the education and skills for a job in most cases. In China it is all about status. The more fancy brands you have the more good you will look in people’s eyes. Walking around with a knock-off Michael Kors bag is not an option, not if you want to be ranked high in China. The Chinese consumer spending’s can be broken down into 7 categories. Chinese consumers care about looking beautiful, eating healthy clean food, a better home, connectivity good Internet service, entertainment, education and all things luxury. That seems to be the trends in China.

But with desires comes concerns. In China there are lots of concerns for example the safety of foods and medicine. Why is it so? When you think of a large country that is at spot number 2 for the worlds leading economies. You might think the government would spend a few dimes on the population and fix what is wrong. With almost 1.4 billion people the problem still lies at food. There isn’t enough food to feed so many people. Imagine the rest of the world. Sometimes I think that the more people the merrier, but now seeing the climate change yearly and drastically. And every person born means using more energy to produce the products we need. By being born and consuming we are hurting the planet. I hope we can open our eyes and take action to stop what we are doing and look at the things that matter in live; this world. Without this world where would we go? Would humanity still exist? How will we be with our loved ones? What about the next generations? What about the future? There is a lot to think about there.

We know Chinese people love to shop. Different factors contribute to this such as online websites, celebrities, and social media but especially the reviews left of the product. Good or excellent reviews means more Chinese people will probably buy it because their friends or family has it. And they want to join the crowd.

So, we know about the Chinese consumer behavior but what about the tourism? Let us break it down here. Chinese people want luxury goods as a symbol of status, but when your own country sells it for sky-high prices what do you do. Well, you go abroad and buy it way cheaper right.

Let us take iPhone for example in China the iPhone is 22% more expensive in China. The reason being is because 10% to 50% import taxes are added on top of the original prices of the goods. Which leads to prices of the goods being way expensive then intended. Chinese people go abroad not only for vacation reasons but also do some shopping. One third of the luxury shopping is done by Chinese people. Chinese tourist usually spends their money on shopping, accommodation, transport, food, entertainment etc. More and more Chinese are travelling abroad, but only 4% of the population obtains of a passport. Imagine if everyone had one. There would be more travelling than expected. We all know that in China the culture and language is different. When travelling some know little to no Chinese at all. They also don’t know the customs there. So, Chinese being Chinese they act like they would in China. Some argue that Chinese people have the money, but they don’t have the manners. Many stories you can find on the Internet about Chinese tourists behaving poorly. In Europe we usually have to pay for ketchup, mayonnaise and to use the bathroom. In China that isn’t applied and for first time travellers it may be appalling to hear such a thing. Some who go to relieve themselves in public stations or on the side of the road. Which here in Europe we don’t do those things. It upsets locals. It also gives the Chinese tourist a bad reputation. The Chinese government is trying to go against bad behavior and is threating to publicly shame those who behave badly abroad or to take away their passport (black list them). More and more Chinese tour guides are making it a habit to warn the Chinese tourist to behave properly and explain that in foreign countries they don’t behave the same as in China. Just like in China the customs are differently in other countries. Here are a few of Chinese tourist behaving badly in our eyes.

We locals wouldn't do that.

Relieving yourself in public! OOPS!

Here's a video

My take on consumer behaviour and tourism is that it’s important everywhere. Consumer behavior is a unique aspect of a person or group that influences the decision-making factor. You can study it all you want, but for me personally each one of us are different. The government can change the bad behavior of Chinese people going abroad. Just like they like to use posters for campaigns or instructions they could use posters to instruct Chinese thinking of going abroad on how to behave. You have books for tourist that shows you how to greet and ask for directions. So why not make one for the Chinese as well. We cannot avoid this. The Chinese inbound tourism is only going to grow with the fast growing economy in China. The hunt for luxury goods also keeps rising. So, we can either accept the Chinese tourist and the revenue they bring us or we could ban them from ever coming to our land. What would you prefer to do? Instead of complaining about the problem why not work our way around it.

Here are the sources I have used to conclude my opinion on the topic.

Sources

(2014, december). Retrieved from scmp: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1671504/rude-awakening-chinese-tourists-have-means-not-manners

(2015). Retrieved from washingtonpost: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/01/16/beijing-is-embarrassed-about-unruly-chinese-tourists-and-plans-to-publicly-shame-them/

(2016). Retrieved from blackboard: https://leren.saxion.nl/bbcswebdav/pid-1438527-dt-content-rid-10648366_4/institution/HBS/HBS-breed/CHIN/Saxion%203%20-%20Consumer%20Behaviour%20and%20Tourism.pdf

how to be a chinese tourist. (2016). Retrieved from youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVhbRtnjT0E