Chinese Outbound tourists: Understanding their attitudes, constraints and use of information sources

Drawing upon Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) a survey was developed and implemented in Shanghai, China to investigate potential Chinese outbound tourists' values in terms of destination attributes, as well as attitudes toward international travel. Five destination attributes were rated as most important by this potential group of tourists and included the natural beauty and icons of a destination, quality infrastructure, autonomy, inspirational motives and social self-enhancement. In terms of predicting intentions to travel, social normative influences and perceived levels of personal control constraints were most influential based on TPB. The use of information sources in seeking information about a destination was also investigated. The evidence obtained suggests that television programs are an important source of information used by Chinese people to learn about target destinations. The role of the Internet as an information source was also shown to be substantial and stands to have a stronger impact over time.