CULTURAL TOURISM: AN ASSESSMENT OF MARKETING STRATEGIES IN DALIAN, NANJING AND HAINAN, CHINA Xiye Wang, University of Alberta Geoff Wall, University of Alberta Introduction With adequate income and free time, as well as improvements in health care and the economy, Chinese people now have more opportunity to travel. Participating in a tour organized by a local travel agency is a common way to travel in big cities, and the number of group tourists has increased each year in China. This is because of the relatively low price and convenience, as well as people s lack of traveling experiences by themselves. The government pays attention to both tourism economic and social benefits, and the entrepreneurs mainly focus on the economic benefits. However, neglecting marketing tools or making use of them in an incorrect way restricts domestic tourism (Liu, 2002). Cultural tourism is an emerging theme in contemporary tourism in China, but there is no widely accepted framework for cultural tourism studies. This study applies a simple conceptual framework to cultural tourism: (1) high culture; (2) popular culture; (3) festivals and special events (ISTC-Tourism, 1991). It has a clear definition of each category and is simple to apply to the types of data being collected, making it a more useful framework than many others. Travel brochures are a marketing tool and an information distribution channel. In addition to their promotional functions, an analysis of their contents can help in the understanding of tourism itself. Their value has been neglected for a long time by the public and private sectors in China, and the role of brochures in advertising individual attractions and activities needs to be examined. Previous studies have revealed the importance of culture in tourism (Prosser, 2001; Simpson, 1993) cultural representation in tourism (Ashworth, 1994; Ashworth and Tunbridge, 1990; Cheung, 1999; Greenwood, 1989; Hall et al, 1997; Uzzell, 1989) and propose that culture and tourism are combined in tourism development (Patterson, 1976; Ritchie and Zins, 1978). Besides, Morgan and Pritchard (1998) call for further examination of the significance of culture in tourism, as cultural tourism, in reality, has often been simply commercialized. In addition, the representation of cultural components of brochures and their analysis are seldom referred to in the former research, especially in domestic tourism. The main objectives of the study were to examine the use of brochures as a communication tool by producers of tourism products; to determine the dimensions of the cultural differences and the emphasized cultural themes in Dalian, Nanjing and Hainan in a tourism context; and to evaluate the importance of local culture in tourism marketing. A major question is raised by reviewing the literature: How and what aspects of culture are being marketed differently in Dalian, Nanjing and Hainan? Methods The research was conducted in four places in the People s Republic of China: Dalian, Nanjing, Hainan and Beijing. Nanjing is an inland destination whereas Hainan and Dalian are seaside tourism destinations. Nanjing has rich history and culture because
of its important position in the past, while Hainan and Dalian are relatively new, emerging tourism destinations which have a less prominent history. Thus, the varied locations are expected to be reflected in a diversity of cultural expressions and associated influences on local tourism. Beijing was selected to be the source of information on the other three sites. This study focused on measuring the cultural components (both verbal and visual contents) used in tourism marketing, specifically in the well-designed brochures, as well as the perspectives of both governments and travel agencies. Five government officials, two in Dalian, two in Nanjing and one in Hainan were interviewed; ten interviews were conducted with individuals from different travel agencies in Beijing, giving fifteen interviews in total. Finally, 53 brochures were collected from the three destinations: 17 brochures were from Dalian, 18 brochures were from Nanjing and another 18 were from Hainan. Both words and pictures in brochures were analyzed using content analysis: (1) Each brochure was studied, and key words and phases were highlighted. Pictures were coded according to the descriptive words in the captions, or important words prominently displayed in the photo. (2) A set of categories based on the cultural tourism framework was used for organizing information. (3) In order to check accuracy, a colleague was asked to go through the brochures and put all the key words and pictures into the categories as well. (4) After noticing that the literal and pictorial representations of culture were significantly different among the three places, the Chi-square test was used to examine whether the differences between places were real (with at least 95% confidence). The interview transcription was analyzed and interpreted qualitatively in terms of an interview report. Results In general, there were no differences between textual and pictorial representation in cultural components in tourism. The frequency of use of both textual and pictorial representations of culture varied significantly between the study sites. The results suggest that high culture, especially historical heritage, is significant in Nanjing tourism, popular culture is vital in Hainan tourism, and festivals and special events are key elements in Dalian tourism. Local culture is vitally important in tourism and is emphasized and portrayed by vivid images of people, activities and buildings through words and pictures in brochures in tourism marketing. However, it is hard to make a conclusion that the primary focus of the tours is on experiencing culture. Brochures are not a main promotional tool in China in practice due to their limited availability. Brochures were regarded as being an expensive means of promotion. The distribution of brochures was not comprehensive. However, operators of government, travel agencies and tourism attractions more and more realize the importance of promotional brochures; other tools such as guide books, videos, tour guides and so forth could compensate for the shortage of printed information that is distributed. Discussion As expected, this research makes both theoretical and practical contributions to our existing knowledge. The theoretical contribution lies in the fact that it provides a
simple cultural tourism framework that identifies the cultural products that the business operators advertise to the visitors. The marketing system is clarified to provide a better understanding of the role that brochures play in tourism marketing in China. There are different perspectives on cultural tourism marketing between different local governments, as well as between the government and the tourism industry. Generally speaking, in tourism marketing, governments show more interest in the image of a destination while business operators are more concerned about the price and the services. Travel agencies are seldom concerned about marketing cultural tourism products. This can be explained by five reasons: (1) Interview results indicate that only a small proportion of tourists show strong interest in culture and most people experience culture incidentally when they travel; thus the domestic cultural tourism market is currently limited. (2) The designed routes or tours are readily copied by other companies. (3) The operations of the travel agencies are restricted by the government. Some routes are constrained or off-limits to organized tours. (4) Large-scale travel agencies have their own long-term solid market in Beijing. They cater to a specific clientele. (5) The selling of tourism products relies heavily on personal relationships. Brochures are not a main information source. The main problem is in the costs of production and distribution; for many organizations the design, production and distribution of their annual tourism brochure is the single most important and most expensive item in the marketing budget. Thus, brochures are made only at special times for promotional purposes and usually appear in quantity only at business promotion shows and regional and national tourism exhibitions. They are only now beginning to be made available in local tourism service centres. This investigation is only a preliminary study of the cultural representations in tourism brochures. In this study the investigation has been undertaken largely through the frequency of mention of cultural components in the promotion of commercialized cultural tourism products. Also, it is difficult to explore cultural tourism adequately by interviewing marketing professionals and government officials. In future studies, more stakeholders should be considered, such as the perceptions of local residents and tourists. In addition, since the brochure is not a main information supplier to tourists in China, there is a need to examine different promotional tools to find out tourists preferences for sources of information on destinations. Practical Applications The practical implications of this research are: (1) Traditional marketing tools still dominate. Advertising on television and in the newspaper are still the first choice of travel agencies; however there is a great potential demand for the application of new technologies. With new information and communication technologies, the world is shrinking as information is transferred with the click of a mouse. To survive and prosper in such a competitive environment, it is necessary for both the public and private sectors to update strategies continuously. Nevertheless, due to the rapid growth in the number of small and medium-sized travel agencies, it is difficult to implement convenient, time and money-saving new technologies in a short time.
(2) Brochures have been long neglected in China. They need: To have more elaborate designs, from the layouts to the contents, and to target different groups of tourists to increase the effectiveness of promotional messages. Brochure production should also not only be the responsibility of a single agency (such as government, tourist attraction or travel agencies), because the cost of production can be reduced through multi-agency cooperation. (3) Tour guides are an important means of conveying information to tourists and their greater use is an emerging strategy in cultural tourism marketing in China. Not only do they supply and interpret information concerning the destinations, they also encourage the visitors to experience cultural activities due to the economic benefits that accrue. This, in turn, helps to promote local culture. (4) The image of a place is highly relevant to cultural tourism. It is important to know how to project a tourism destination's identity, image and branding in order to sell an image which visitors are then able to experience. The tourism image should incorporate the cultural components in tourism, while cultural tourism helps to build the tourism image of the place. The image that represents each study area has been formed as a generalization about the place. Local culture can be regarded as one of the characteristics of the image. The strength of both the traditional and the contemporary culture should be enhanced and the place's distinctiveness should be emphasized in tourism marketing. References Ashworth, G.J. and Tunbridge, J.E. (1990). The tourist-historic city. London: Belhaven Press. Ashworth, G.J. (1994). From history to heritage: from heritage to identity: in search of concepts and models. In: Ashworth, G.J. and Larkham, P.J. (Eds.), Building a new heritage: tourism, culture and identity in the New Europe. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Cheung, S.C.H. (1999). The meanings of a heritage trail in Hong Kong. Annals of Tourism Research, 26 (3), 570-588. Greenwood, D. (1989). Culture by the pound: an anthropological perspective in tourism as cultural commodification. In: hosts and guests: the anthropology of tourism. PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hall, S. (ed). (1997). Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. London: Sage and the Open University. ISTC-Tourism (1991). Investigative study on the cultural tourism sector. Canada Directorate. Liu, D.Q. (2002) Analysis and Prediction on China Domestic Tourism. Retrieved February 14, 2002, from http://www.china.com.cn. Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (1998). Tourism promotion and power: creating images, creating identities. Chichester, UK: Wiley. Patterson, W.D. (1976). Pacifica Nostra. Tourism International Policy, 3rd Quarter: pp.2-6. Prosser, G. (2001). Regional tourism. In Douglas. N., Douglas. N., and Derrett. R. (eds.), Special interest tourism. Singapore: John Wiley and Sons Australia.
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ABSTRACTS of Papers Presented at the Eleventh Canadian Congress on Leisure Research May 17 20, 2005 Hosted by Department of Recreation and Tourism Management Malaspina University-College Nanaimo, B.C. Abstracts compiled and edited by Tom Delamere, Carleigh Randall, David Robinson CCLR-11 Programme Committee Tom Delamere Dan McDonald Carleigh Randall Rick Rollins and David Robinson Copyright 2005 Canadian Association for Leisure Studies ISBN 1-896886-01-9