Shopping experiences: International tourists in Beijing's Silk Market

•Considers international tourists in China – an important and under-studied group.•Focuses on shopping experiences at the most well-visited Chinese tourist market.•“Bargaining” can be an experience of “fun” for many tourists.•Different satisfaction groups represented their experience differently.•Satisfaction for male tourists was higher than female shoppers.

This study examines international tourists' experiences in Beijing's Silk Market, one of the China's most well-known tourist markets. Tourists' spontaneous reviews on TripAdvisor were analyzed through Leximancer, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. The study confirms that markets can be major tourism attractions and can provide important experiences for international tourists. Most international tourists were impressed with their Silk Market trip. The dominant narratives of their experiences were the “price” of the items they “bought”, the “fun” of “bargaining”, and the “fake” quality of the products. Further analyses show that different satisfaction groups used somewhat different narratives to represent their shopping experiences and that male international tourists enjoyed the Silk Market experiences more than their female counterparts.