Abstract
Chinese tourist shopping reflects the new consumer culture in contemporary China, but remains underexplored in the tourism literature despite its importance to many destinations. The present study applies social practice theory to tourist shopping research with the aim of exploring the key features of Chinese tourist shopping in Australia. Tourist shopping as a social practice is the basic unit of analysis, while tourists are decentralized as carriers of this practice. This study employed a qualitative methodology to analyze shopping-related posts in 40 travel blogs from two Chinese online travel communities. The findings show that tourist shopping practice consists of four interconnected elements: materials, competences, meanings, and settings—with utilitarian products purchased in large quantities and maintaining guanxi emerging as unique features of the Chinese tourist shopping practices. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential of social practice theory to enhance theoretical approaches in this area.
Introduction
China has transformed in the last 40 years from an ascetic to a consumer society (N. Wang 2009). The consumer revolution in China is not, however, just a replication of the Western consumer culture (D. Davis 2000) but the outcome of rapid transformations in Chinese economic, social, and technological structures (Yu 2014). Contemporary Chinese consumers choose certain values from their cultural repertoire—which contains both Western and traditional Chinese values—to legitimize their spending decisions (Zhang 2017). As a noticeable consumption practice, Chinese outbound tourist shopping (COTS) is a mirror reflecting this new Chinese consumer culture. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO 2017), China has been the top spender in international tourism across the world since 2012, with Chinese tourists spending a record of US$261 billion abroad in 2016. Shopping continues to make up the highest proportion of their travel expenditure (China Tourism Academy 2018).
Despite the recognition of its prevalence and importance, COTS remains underexplored in the tourism literature. Only 27 relevant journal articles could be identified from searches of four databases—ScienceDirect, Sage Journals, Taylors & Francis Online, and Emerald Insight. Most of these studies were quantitative, conducted in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, and made little explicit use of theoretical concepts. Where such concepts were applied, most of them were borrowed from Western approaches assuming individual agency and therefore applied to the Chinese scenario without taking into account the different social and cultural context. This reflects the often unstated assumption that shopping behavior is solely the result of individual agency with little consideration of wider social forces. While the tension between individual agency and social forces in explaining behavior has been given considerable attention in the social sciences in general (cf. Elder-Vass 2010), this theoretical challenge has largely been ignored in tourism.
The present study seeks to fill these research gaps by investigating COTS from a sociological perspective, specifically using social practice theory (SPT) as an overall framework. SPT conceptualizes tourist shopping as a social practice that is carried out by individual tourists but reflects the broader consumption landscape in China. The overall aim of this study is to use SPT as a framework for exploring COTS in Australia. Australia was one of the first Western countries to be granted Approved Destination Status in 1999 (Tourism Australia 2017). Chinese visitor arrivals to Australia have experienced a large increase since then, with faster growth than any other market in recent years (Tourism Australia 2012). According to Tourism Research Australia (2015), more than 40% of Chinese tourists’ total expenditure comes from shopping, which is identified as a key driver for creating their positive travel experiences (Tourism Research Australia 2014). Nevertheless, there exists little, if any, tourism research focusing on COTS in Australia. More specifically, the study attempts to answer the research question: What are the key features of Chinese tourist shopping practices in Australia?
Literature Review: COTS
The systematic review of the 27 empirical studies on COTS (see appendix for a summary) reveals a dominance of investigations into motivation. For example, Tsang, Lee, and Liu (2014) applied Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to understand Chinese tourist shopping motivations in Hong Kong and found that Chinese tourists with more shopping experiences do not necessarily place more emphasis on a higher level of motivational factors. Chan et al. (2014), Correia, Kozak, and Kim (2018), and Hung et al. (2018) examined Chinese tourist motivations for luxury consumption. Interestingly, Chan et al. (2014) identified a segment of Chinese tourists who purchase luxury goods to express individual differences, while in the studies of Correia, Kozak, and Kim (2018) and Hung et al. (2018), conformity with others was found to be a key driver of Chinese tourists’ luxury shopping.
Tourist shopping satisfaction forms a second major line of research on COTS. A range of shopping attributes have been used to measure satisfaction (Y. H. Lin and Lin 2006; Liu, Choi, and Lee 2008), with Wong and Wan (2013) recently conceptualizing this construct as consisting of four dimensions—service product and environment, merchandise values, staff service quality, and service differentiation. Also, the relationships between Chinese tourists’ shopping satisfaction and other variables, such as perceived value (Lloyd, Yip, and Luk 2011; Lo and Qu 2015) and behavioral intention (Correia, Kozak, and Kim 2018; Wong and Lam 2016), have been examined. It can be claimed that most of these studies investigated shopping satisfaction at the destination level. Notably, Wong and Lam (2016) found that Chinese tourists’ shopping satisfaction in specific stores mediate the effects of shopping motives on their behavioral intention.
A number of issues can be identified with this existing body of research. Firstly, the coverage of the COTS phenomenon is piecemeal and limited in several ways. Only five studies (Gao, Huang, and Brown 2017; Kwek and Lee 2013; F. Li and Ryan 2018; Xu and McGehee 2012; Zhu, Xu, and Jiang 2016) focused on destinations outside Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Y. J. Wang et al. (2010) noted this could be a major limitation as other destinations offer a very different context and set of conditions for shopping. The existing research also has limited coverage of the major dependent variables of actual shopping behavior, with only a few studies (e.g., M. J. Choi, Heo, and Law 2016; Yeung and Yee 2012; Zhu, Xu, and Jiang 2016) measuring the full spectrum of what Chinese outbound tourists actually purchased. Two studies (Chang 2014; Kong and Chang 2016) measured overall expenditure but did not examine what was actually purchased, and L. Lin (2017) measured food souvenir purchases only. The majority of the studies measured satisfaction with shops and service, preferences for shop and product features, or intention to purchase.
In virtually all of these studies, there was an underlying assumption of a direct link between these measures and actual purchase behavior. These untested assumptions about the assumed precursors to actual shopping behaviors are problematic in two significant ways. The first problem is that they are derived from Western marketing/psychology models of behavior that assume individuals are relatively free agents unconstrained in their options. Given the emphasis in the broader literature on the collectivist nature of, and ideological influence on, Chinese consumption (Zhang 2017), these untested assumptions of individual agency are likely to be erroneous. Indeed several of the papers, especially the more recent ones, raise this as an issue (Hung et al. 2018; Kwek and Lee 2013; L. Lin 2017; Zhu, Xu, and Jiang 2016). The second problem is the borrowing of Western models that assume purchases are primarily for the individual tourist. Again more recent studies (Hung et al. 2018; F. Li and Ryan 2018; L. Lin 2017) have challenged this, with L. Lin (2017) arguing that more than 80% of all purchases made by Chinese tourists were gifts for others.
The coverage of COTS research has also been limited to quantitative survey methods and this research gap is reflected in the prevalent use of statistical analysis tools, such as factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Only a few studies used alternative methods, including semistructured interviews (F. Li and Ryan 2018; Xu and McGehee 2012; Zhu, Xu, and Jiang 2016), participant observation (Kwek and Lee 2013), and focus group discussion (Hung et al. 2018). This very limited range of methodological approaches highlights a second major issue for the existing COTS research, its lack of explanatory power. Zhu, Xu, and Jiang (2016) suggest that the bulk of the previous COTS research can be described as “descriptive marketing studies” (p. 293). This reflects the primary goals of all but a handful of studies (specifically Kwek and Lee 2013; L. Lin 2017; Y. J. Wang et al. 2010; Zhu, Xu, and Jiang 2016) focused on recommendations to retail stores and destinations as to how to attract the attention of Chinese tourist shoppers. Despite the extensive use of multivariate statistics, there are almost no attempts to explain any of the observed relationships at anything beyond a shallow descriptive level. In 2010, Wang and colleagues warned that China was a complex and dynamic country and researchers needed to seek a more “in-depth understanding of its culture” if they wanted to get beyond simply describing what Chinese tourists do to explaining why they do it and moving to predicting how they might change in the future (Y. J. Wang et al. 2010, p. 434). The five more qualitative studies (Hung et al. 2018; Kwek and Lee 2013; F. Li and Ryan 2018; L. Lin 2017; Zhu, Xu, and Jiang 2016) all took a more sociological approach in attempting to better link COTS behaviors to their social and cultural context.
Overall, this area of research needs more qualitative and mixed methods research to support the induction of more complex explanatory models that take into account the unique characteristics of Chinese consumption and that focus on COTS as a holistic phenomenon. In addition, research is required in a wider range of destinations and with greater attention paid to the actual shopping behaviors. The present article seeks to address these needs by using a theoretical framework from sociology that supports both a holistic approach to the phenomenon and attempts to place this particular form of consumption in its social, political, and cultural context.
Theoretical Background
SPT provides a distinctive account of the social world and how it changes. SPT per se is not a unified theory (Nicolini 2012; Schatzki 2001). Rather, it is a collection of accounts about the workings of social life that center on social practices (Schatzki 2011). Based on the extensive work of Schatzki (1996), Reckwitz (2002), Warde (2005), and Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012), definitions of social practice and key affordances of SPT can be presented as follows.
Variations exist in defining social practice. Schatzki (1996) described social practice as “a temporally unfolding and spatially dispersed nexus of doings and sayings” (p. 89). He further stated that the doings and sayings constituting a social practice are linked through three avenues: understandings, rules, and “teleoaffective” structures (Schatzki 1996). In Reckwitz’s (2002) work, “a practice is a routinized type of behavior which consists of several elements, interconnected to each other: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge” (p. 249). The use of the phrase “a routinized type of behavior,” as Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012) commented, does not mean that social practices equate with the habits of individuals. A social practice “represents a pattern which can be filled out by a multitude of single and often unique actions reproducing the practice” (Reckwitz 2002, p. 250).
Warde (2005), following Schatzki (1996), argued that a social practice involves both practical activity and its representations. He renamed the three elements as understandings, procedures, and engagements (Warde 2005), but did not explain the reasons for this split in detail. More recently, Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012), mainly influenced by Reckwitz (2002), proposed that a social practice is made of three elements—materials, competences, and meanings. Specifically, materials refer to “things, technologies, tangible physical entities, and the stuff of which objects are made”; competences encompass “skill, know-how and technique”; and in the meanings element, “symbolic meanings, ideas and aspirations” are included (Shove, Pantzar, and Watson 2012, p. 14).
The increasing popularity of SPT lies in its affordances that can help understand and explain social phenomena differently. First, SPT situates the social in social practices. As Reckwitz (2002) argued, “the social world is first and foremost populated by diverse social practices which are carried by agents” (p. 256). In Giddens’s (1984) words, “the basic domain of study of the social sciences . . . is neither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of any form of societal totality, but social practices ordered across space and time” (p. 2). Since social practices consist of both doings and sayings (Schatzki 1996), analysis from SPT perspective explains both bodily actions and the linked mental activities.
SPT also attempts to bridge the agency–structure dualism (Røpke 2009; Schatzki 1996; Spaargaren 2011). Individual agency argues that individuals make choices about how to behave based on their individual characteristics, perceptions of the situations, and their personal abilities or constraints. By way of contrast, structuralists argue that action arises out of social structures and institutions that constrain and direct individual choices (Elder-Vass 2010). In the vocabulary of SPT, individuals are no longer at the center of analysis but are seen as carriers of social practices (Reckwitz 2002; Shove, Pantzar, and Watson 2012). Rather than existing as personal attributes (Shove, Pantzar, and Watson 2012), meanings, know-how, and purposes are “elements and qualities of a practice in which the single individual participates” (Reckwitz 2002, p. 250). As the practitioner of different social practices, an individual locates at a very precise place—the unique crossing point of these practices (Reckwitz 2002). However, looking beyond the individual does not imply that SPT reverts to the structuralist paradigm (Spaargaren 2011). Social structure does not exist outside or above individuals. Instead, it is constituted by and reproduced through a multitude of social practices, which are carried by individuals. SPT thus affords a middle path to reinterpret the relationship between agency and structure, and accordingly, could avoid both the trap of methodological individualism and that of holism.
This use of social practices to bridge the agency-structure divide is an especially important one in tourism in general, and for understanding COTS in particular. Bramwell and Meyer (2007) called upon tourism researchers to use approaches that might reduce the “unhelpful dualism between agency and structure” (p. 766). Despite calls for tourism researchers to more explicitly consider and address this fundamental issue on developing causal explanations in tourism (Cohen and Cohen 2012; Davis 2001; MacCannell 2001), the agency–structure divide has mostly been ignored in tourism (Bramwell 2007).
A Preliminary Framework for Applying SPT to Tourist Shopping Research
The notion of social practice has been drawn upon by a rising number of tourism researchers in recent years. A range of research topics has been examined from a social practice perspective, such as backpacking (Iaquinto 2015), gap year travel (Luzecka 2016), food tourism (James and Halkier 2016) and sustainable tourism mobility (Verbeek and Mommaas 2008). These applications do not follow a single template, with different tourism researchers having used SPT in context-specific ways based on its general affordances. Overall, it is suggested that SPT could offer a fresh way of understanding touristic phenomena that is distinct from, and often alternative to, traditional approaches (de Souza Bispo 2016; Lamers, van der Duim, and Spaargaren 2017).
This study attempts to apply SPT to tourist shopping research. Tourist shopping is seen as a social practice with constitutive elements. It is the basic unit of analysis, while tourists are decentralized as carriers of this practice. Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012) articulated the dynamics of social practice using a scheme where a social practice consists of three interconnected elements—materials, competences, and meanings. The present study uses this scheme as a preliminary framework to interpret tourist shopping from a social practice perspective. As Røpke (2009) suggested, each of the three elements should be understood as a broad category covering different aspects. The emphasis of this study is not on providing a full list of these aspects, but rather examining the aspects that are most pertinent to the research context. Bearing this point in mind, the three key elements of tourist shopping as a social practice can be stated in more detail as follows.
- Materials include products that tourists buy to take home during their travel and information and communications technologies (ICTs) that are used by tourists to facilitate their shopping enactments.
- Competences encompass knowledge and skills needed to perform tourist shopping.
- Meanings refer to the purposes, beliefs, and significances of tourist shopping. Meanings are social as they are shared understandings belonging to tourist shopping rather than emerging from self-contained tourists (Røpke 2009).
To summarize, SPT provides a new level of analysis that allows for the integration of individual and social levels of causal explanation. This offers the potential to uncover new insights into tourism in general, and into the COTS phenomenon in particular. The present study draws from SPT upon the social practice framework put forward by Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012) to explore the key features of COTS in Australia. In the next section, the methods of data collection and analysis used in this study will be presented.
Methodology
This exploratory study employed a qualitative methodology to identify the key characteristics of Chinese tourist shopping practices in Australia. It belongs to the constructivist paradigm, which “assumes a relativist ontology (there are multiple realities), a subjectivist epistemology (knower and respondent co-create understandings), and a naturalistic (in the natural world) set of methodological procedures” (Denzin and Lincoln 2005, p. 24). More specifically, this study is qualitative research using virtual documents as data (Bryman 2016; Flick 2006). As Flick (2006) stated, the use of documents for study has a long tradition in qualitative research, and this method is deemed to be unobtrusive and nonreactive, providing an unfiltered perspective on the field under study. Especially in the era of Web 2.0, pervasive user-generated content (UGC) has been widely used by researchers to trace consumer behavior and experience (e.g., J. Li and Pearce 2016; Smith, Fischer, and Yongjian 2012).
Travel blogs were selected as the appropriate UGC data to collect in this exploratory study. Blogging is a popular online activity that Chinese people undertake to record and share their travel experiences. The blogs of Chinese tourists have been used to investigate various research questions, such as the safety concerns of recreational vehicle driving (Wu 2015) and tourist scams (J. Li and Pearce 2016). As archival data (Kozinets 2015), travel blogs do not bear the imprint of the researchers. They are similar to online diaries where tourists spontaneously portray their travel stories in detail mainly in chronological order. Travel blogs thus could provide rich shopping narratives of Chinese tourists for the authors to explore.
The present study focused on two Chinese online platforms—Qyer.com and Mafengwo.cn—for data collection. Qyer.com and Mafengwo.cn are the two most popular online travel communities in China (Shen and Liu 2016). Founded in 2004, Qyer.com is the first and largest website that specializes in Chinese outbound travel (M.-Y. Wu and Pearce 2014). It provides users with a wide range of outbound travel guides, tips, and forums as well as destination services. Mafengwo.cn positions itself as a leading tourism social networking website, taking free independent travel as the core. It pays attention not only to Chinese outbound travel but also to their domestic trips. Notably, both websites are well known for their massive UGC and have been the sites chosen in other tourist research (cf. Cheng 2017; M.-Y. Wu and Pearce 2014). As a type of UGC, the ever-updating travel blogs constitute an active section in the online communities.
The data collection and analysis were completed in two phases from September 2015 to January 2016. All the travel blogs were collected by the first author, who is a registered member on and familiar with Qyer.com and Mafengwo.cn, with the corresponding analysis being conducted by all authors. In the first phase, the first author chose “Australia” in the destination catalog after logging in to each website and sorted all the travel blogs posted in the Australia section in reverse chronological order. Then the included travel blogs were read. If the blogger was from mainland China and posted detailed information on shopping when traveling in Australia, the shopping-related texts were copied and pasted into a Word document and the shopping-related images were saved in a separate folder. Consistent with guidelines for exploratory qualitative research, the study used purposive sampling focused on generating sufficient elements to reach theoretical saturation (Suri 2011). To begin, 20 travel blog entries, 10 each from the two selected websites, were retrieved, with NVivo 11 being used to code and categorize the text data (Bazeley and Jackson 2013). The coding process followed Braun and Clarke’s (2006) guide to performing theory-driven thematic analysis, which was guided by the preliminary social practice framework stated above. Table 1 presents some examples of data extracts with codes, categories, and themes applied. The second phase of data collection and analysis was designed to check whether more travel blogs could offer new insights into Chinese tourists’ shopping practices in Australia. In this phase, the first author repeated the same process to collect and analyze data as that in the first phase. Another 20 travel blogs, 10 each from Qyer.com and Mafengwo.cn, were retrieved, and then coded by using NVivo 11. The authors saw similar instances repeatedly as the coding process continued, without any new categories emerging, and it was concluded that the theoretical saturation (Glaser and Strauss 1967) had been reached and further data collection and analysis was unnecessary.
Data Extracts with Codes, Categories, and Themes Applied.
In total, the shopping-related texts and images from 40 travel blogs were collected and analyzed. More specifically, 20 travel blogs elicited from Qyer.com were coded as Q-01 to Q-20, containing 23,787 words and 151 images; 20 travel blogs generated from Mafengwo.cn were coded as M-01 to M-20, comprising 15,647 words and 78 images. It is important to point out that the shopping-related words were used as the main source of data in this study, while the complementary images were employed to triangulate the text data (Denzin 1989). It is also worth noting that the shopping-related texts and images from 40 travel blogs not only consisted of the shopping practices of the bloggers but in most cases also comprised that of their travel group members. The analysis focused on the shopping practices revealed in the blogs, rather than on the characteristics of individual tourists. In addition, all the collected travel blogs were originally written in Chinese. Whenever quoted, the blog contents were first translated from Chinese to English by the first author and then back-translated by a translator fluent in both Chinese and English (Chen and Boore 2010). The final English version of quotes was reached by agreement between the translator and all the authors (Chen and Boore 2010).
Findings
This section presents the findings on the shopping practices of Chinese tourists in Australia in two parts. The first part illustrates the key features of materials, competences, and meanings of Chinese tourists’ shopping practices in Australia on the basis of the preliminary framework stated above. The second part elaborates the necessity of adding settings as a fourth element of shopping practices in the tourism context and describes the key features of the settings element of Chinese tourists’ shopping practices in Australia.
Materials, Competences, and Meanings
Materials
Products that are bought by tourists to take home are essential materials of their shopping practices. According to the 40 travel blogs, a wide variety of products were purchased by Chinese tourists when traveling in Australia. The variety of purchased products can be illustrated by an image posted by Q-17 (Figure 1). As shown in Figure 1, the items that Q-17 got ranged from Tim Tam biscuits and chia seeds, to goat soap and a Cartier watch. This finding is not surprising in the sense that the diversity of products that Chinese tourists seek when traveling in other countries has been revealed in previous research (e.g., Xu and McGehee 2012; Zhu, Xu, and Jiang 2016). This pattern is, however, very different from that reported for other international tourists in Australia who focus on buying crafts, wine, art, homewares, and clothing (Murphy, Moscardo, and Benckendorff 2013) and reviews of products bought by tourists summarized in Lehto, Chen, and Silkes (2014).
An image of products that Q-17 displayed.
The products that Chinese tourists favor in Australia can be grouped into five main categories based on the frequencies that they were mentioned in the blogs: clothing and accessories, health care products, cosmetics, souvenirs, and food and drinks. Notably, souvenirs in the conventional sense, which are stressed by Swanson and Timothy (2012), only account for a small percentage of the total products chosen by Chinese tourists, while a number of products that are more utilitarian have become the target purchase of Chinese tourists. Moreover, these utilitarian goods are purchased by Chinese tourists in large quantities. This feature provides a clue to understand why more than 40% of Chinese tourists’ total expenditure in Australia comes from shopping (Tourism Research Australia 2015). The amount of products that Chinese tourists purchase is not only shown in the images that they posted (e.g., Figure 1) but also reflected in their descriptions of baggage weight in the blogs. As Q-10 wrote, “Because I shopped a lot in Brisbane, my baggage was seriously overweight. I was shocked when checking in: I purchased a 20kg baggage allowance, but my baggage was 33kg.”
A majority of the products purchased by Chinese tourists are well-known branded ones, at least within their categories. This proposition is consistent with Zhu, Xu, and Jiang (2016), where brand admiration was reflected in the shopping experience of urban Chinese who traveled to Europe. Different in part from Kwek and Lee (2013), the brands that are referred to in the 40 blogs are not necessarily luxury, but to a large degree can be labeled as premium. The Australian brands are connected to being Australian made, which for Chinese tourists is a guarantee for clean and genuine products, while the international brands purchased were often associated with lower price compared to that in China. For example, M-01 described Aesop skincare products as “produced in Melbourne,” “pure plant,” and “safe to use during pregnancy.” When Q-14 bought an iPhone 6 plus, she emphasized, “it is more than RMB1,000 (US$154) cheaper than that at home including the tax refund.” This connection between brands and safety rather than luxury is an important one, as previous discussion about Chinese consumers has tended to focus on luxury and conspicuous consumption (Sun, D’Alessandro, and Johnson 2014). The current research suggests instead that brands purchased in Australia may be driven more by a desire to access safe, clean, and authentic products. This drive for safety and authenticity reflects the current context of multiple product safety failures in China and widespread counterfeiting of goods (Ross 2012).
ICTs constitute an indispensable part of the materials of Chinese tourists’ shopping practices in Australia. According to the 40 travel blogs, shopping websites and mobile apps are two main types of ICTs that are used by Chinese tourists to facilitate their shopping enactments. Online shopping is a booming phenomenon in China, with the number of users having risen to 413 million by December 2015 (China Internet Network Information Center 2016). Interestingly, there are increasingly more overseas products available on Chinese shopping websites via Daigous, who are essentially shopping agents that purchase products at the request of Chinese customers and ship them to China (Battersby 2016). These products from shopping websites are often used by Chinese tourists as references to guide their shopping enactments on site. The attributes of these products, especially their prices, are commonly compared to, and contrasted with, that of products displayed in the shopping venues. For example, Q-16 described, “There was a so-called Australia’s cheapest chemist opposite the Cairns Central. I did not know whether it was cheapest or not, but the products there were cheaper than that from Daigous on Taobao (a Chinese website for online shopping).”
Mobile apps are also integrated into the shopping practices of Chinese tourists. For instance, M-07 and his wife decided to shop at Direct Factory Outlets (DFO), South Wharf, Melbourne. He searched the venue via Google map app and found it “not far from the Federation Square. There are only three stops in between if (we) catch the free bus. (We) would arrive with a short walk after (we) get off the bus” (M-07). Apart from the navigation apps, the Tourist Refund Scheme (TRS) app is frequently referred to, and recommended for use, in the travel blogs. The TRS app allows passengers traveling on international flights departing Australia and international cruises to enter the information required to lodge TRS claims, according to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) (2017). If the passengers successfully enter their claim details using the app, they will be able to use a dedicated queue at the TRS facility and should spend less time queuing (DIBP 2017). The TRS app has been well received by Chinese tourists, which can be exemplified by the following quote: “I suggest that you download TRS app. It is very good and easy to use. Plus, there were only two people in the queue before us” (Q-05). This use of mobile technology in shopping decision-making and purchase behaviors is a phenomenon recognized in the wider retail literature and referred to as multichannel shopping (McGoldrick and Collins 2007). While multichannel shopping is a growing phenomenon among all consumers, not just the Chinese, it has not been discussed in either the tourist shopping literature (Jin, Moscardo, and Murphy 2017) nor in the reviews of mobile technology use in tourism (Huang et al. 2017; D. Wang, Xiang, and Fesenmaier 2014).
Competences
The competences mainly cover the knowledge and skills needed to carry out the practice, with some of them being codified in formal rules, regulations, and instructions (Røpke 2009). Since shopping is one of the most basic practices in daily lives, the relevant competences in general are learned by practitioners through extensive experience over time and become activated when conducting the practice on site. However, tourist shopping is not just a transplantation of daily shopping into the tourism context. It requires not only the general shopping competences of tourists accumulated at home but also the knowledge and skills associated with shopping in the destination. With regard to the shopping practices of Chinese tourists in Australia, the competences that are mostly referred to in the 40 travel blogs include the knowledge of products, shopping venues, TRS, and language skills.
Chinese tourists conduct shopping practices in Australia with a good knowledge of what to buy. They have made pretravel preparations such that their purchases of some products can be more planned than improvised. For instance, Q-12, who traveled with family and friends, wrote that “all mums had prepared shopping lists before our travel.” More specifically, brand and price are two product attributes that seem to be of most concern to Chinese tourists. Brand awareness and price comparison can be found everywhere in the blogs. As illustrated by Q-16, “Kiehl’s in Australia is much cheaper than that in Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport. For example, the 125g ultra facial cream is RMB366 (US$56) in Terminal 3, while it is only a bit more than AU$50 (US$36) at Sydney Airport. Jurlique in these two places is at similar prices, but it is still a little bit cheaper (at Sydney Airport) than that in Terminal 3.” It can also be identified that in addition to personal experience, Daigous, friends, and celebrities function as major product information sources from which Chinese tourists learn about what to buy in Australia.
To learn where to shop is also an integral part of the pre-travel preparations of Chinese tourists. As M-14 described, “Coles and Woolworths are two leading supermarket chains in Australia. I read some travel tips on Australian supermarkets beforehand. http://www.aozhou123.com/1-1844.html. I thought this article was good. After reading it, I wanted to shop in Coles. So I did not go to Woolie.” From the 40 travel blogs, it is not difficult to find that Chinese tourists generally have acquired basic knowledge of what a specific shopping venue, for example Queen Victoria Building (QVB), is, where it is located, and what products are sold there before their travel. Interestingly, the business hours in shopping venues are easily overlooked by Chinese tourists. As a result, Chinese tourists sometimes cheerfully go shopping only to find the door closed. For example, M-09 wrote that “(We) got off the subway at QVB station and found many stores were already closed, although it was only 4:30pm. (We) could only have a look outside the UGG flagship store and need to come here earlier tomorrow.” As the travel of Chinese tourists in Australia goes, so goes their knowledge of shopping venues. In other words, the shopping practices of Chinese tourists conducted in one venue would dynamically become the knowledge base for their subsequent shopping practices. M-09 went to QVB again with his wife the next day and continued, “With the experience yesterday, we visited QVB as soon as we came back to the city center (Sydney).”
The competences in TRS, not surprisingly, have been repeatedly highlighted in the travel blogs, given the large variety and quantity of products that Chinese tourists purchase in Australia. As part of the Australian Government’s tax system, the TRS allows Australians and overseas visitors to claim a refund of the goods and services tax and wine equalization tax paid on goods bought in Australia and then taken out of Australia in checked luggage or carry-on bags (DIBP 2017). Besides the knowledge of using the TRS app stated above, Chinese tourists should know what can (not) be claimed, when to go to TRS facility and how to claim a tax refund, especially on liquids, aerosols, or gels. Otherwise, making a TRS claim can become an unpleasant experience. For example, Q-01 got into trouble when she went through the Customs at Brisbane Airport. As Q-01 stated, “The products on which I intended to claim tax refund included a small Aesop facial masque and a large Jurlique hand cream. I did not check them in with my luggage as I wanted to make a claim for them. But it turned out that the Customs did not allow me to take them on board. They could be either confiscated or checked in.” Likewise, M-02 and M-19 mistakenly believed that the TRS claim could only be made for products in carry-on baggage.
Language environment for Chinese tourists is a big difference between their shopping practices in Australia and that at home. The performance of shopping practices in Australia may well require a certain level of English reading and speaking skills, which many Chinese tourists do not have. It can be argued that the language barrier is still an obstacle to Chinese tourist shopping in Australia. A similar statement has been made by Xu and McGehee (2012) where the shopping venues in America are suggested to have Chinese signs and Chinese-speaking shop assistants to improve the shopping experience of Chinese tourists. In fact, to shop in venues where Chinese-speaking shop assistants are available has been used by Chinese tourists as a way to bridge the language barrier. As instantiated by Q-10, “Xiaoqingxin (Q-10’s wife) compared the prices in different pharmacies and finally bought several bags of health care products in a pharmacy where there were Chinese shop assistants. . . . Honestly, it is more convenient to have a Chinese-speaking person to assist you when you shop. It would kill me to have to understand so many professional terms in English.”
Meanings
The element of meanings, simply put, is about making sense of a social practice (Røpke 2009). Meanings include the purposes, beliefs, and shared understandings, which represent the social and symbolic significance of participation in the practice (Shove, Pantzar, and Watson 2012). Generally speaking, shopping in Australia is a pivotal and pervasive activity for Chinese tourists. It is common that quite a few preparations for shopping, such as writing shopping lists and reading shopping tips, have been made by Chinese tourists before their travel. Also, the shopping practices of Chinese tourists are commonly carried out all the way through their travel in Australia, with sometimes the last few days being purely used for shopping. More specifically, the meanings of Chinese tourists’ shopping practices in Australia can be divided into four categories as below.
Firstly, memento hunting is a basic and universal meaning of the shopping practices of Chinese tourists. Souvenirs are the most ubiquitous items purchased by tourists throughout the world (Timothy 2005). Chinese tourists in Australia are no exception. Although souvenirs such as koala toys only occupy a small part of what they purchase in Australia, Chinese tourists return home with souvenirs to help them preserve and commemorate their travel experience (Swanson and Timothy 2012). As explained by Q-10, fridge magnets are “evidence showing that I have been here and reminders of my travel.” Accordingly, there is a shared understanding among Chinese tourists that part of their shopping practices is carried out to hunt for mementos of their travel. To search for mementos in this context is not to accomplish specific tasks but, for the most part, is to explore and experience unfamiliar shopping venues. The intention to purchase can arise as the shopping practices unfold, with the process involving fun, surprise, or a bit of disappointment. For example, Q-02 and her boyfriend caught a bus to the Rocks Markets in Sydney and described, “(We) were pleasantly surprised after getting off the bus. The whole Markets roughly stretched over two streets. There were a large variety of products, many of which were Australian made souvenirs. We wandered around the whole Markets and bought some small items related to kangaroo. They were relatively of (Australian) characteristic.”
Seeking brand value is the second category of the meanings of Chinese tourists’ shopping practices. The brand value here can be understood in two senses. One is that brands per se play an enormous role in the shopping practices of Chinese tourists. For example, M-11 and her friend went to a DFO and then left without buying anything, because “there are no high-end brands that the beauty (M-11’s friend) wants. What are available are mainly Australian local brands like Cotton On.” Brands represent new ideologies that structure daily lives in China (Yu 2014). The shopping practices of Chinese tourists in Australia can be treated as an extension of brand ideologies to an unusual environment. Outbound travel becomes an outlet for Chinese tourists to express their favor toward Western brands. The other sense of brand value lies in the price advantage of brand-name products in Australia in contrast to that in China. To purchase upscale products at relatively low prices is commonly counted by Chinese tourists as good value for money. Not surprisingly, price-related information, such as discount and price comparison, is frequently referred to in all 40 travel blogs. An extreme example is Q-14, who bought 15 pairs of branded shoes and explained, “The cheapest pair is about RMB300 (US$46). Women’s shoes are mainly between AU$60 and 120 (US$44 and 88). There are extra discounts from the stores. What’s more, we can claim tax refund if we spend over AU$300 (US$219). Who would not buy?”
Thirdly, the shopping practices of Chinese tourists reflect their pursuit of product quality and authenticity. The existence of this meaning to a large extent is a consequence of the rampancy of counterfeit and substandard products in China. For instance, a string of food safety incidents in China has been exposed by the media or on the Internet in the last decade or so. The contaminated baby formula stands out as one of the worst incidents, causing the death of six infants and the hospitalization of 52,000 with a further 250,000 children suffering from mild kidney and urinary problems (Pei et al. 2011). The frequent exposure of food-related scandals has triggered a nationwide panic on food quality and safety, and contributed to the wider scope of a social trust crisis in contemporary China (Yan 2012). Chinese consumers hold skeptical attitudes toward domestically produced daily commodities but show admiration and trust toward the counterparts made in the West (Zhu, Xu, and Jiang 2016). In pursuit of quality and authenticity, increasingly more Chinese customers turn their attention to purchase utilitarian products when traveling abroad. As can be illustrated by M-01, “I feel that we people that live in China sometimes are quite poor. Both medicine and food are not safe, not to mention the polluted air. Even if I have to wait more than 10 days for ocean shipping, I would like to buy the safest products for my baby and family.”
Last but not least, the shopping practices of Chinese tourists can be conducted as a way of maintenance and reinforcement of guanxi. Guanxi is a Chinese concept that refers to a network of personal connections and social relationships one can use for professional or other advantage (Oxford English Dictionary 2016). The manifestation of guanxi on the shopping practices of Chinese tourists lies in two main aspects: gift buying and purchasing products requested by others. The former means that Chinese tourists voluntarily buy products on their own expenses as gifts for others at home. Q-14 and her husband, for example, shopped on their last day in Sydney primarily because “Today (we) need to buy gifts for relatives and friends.” The latter connotes that Chinese tourists act as shopping agents to purchase specific products at the request of others at home. For instance, M-01 described herself as “bearing a heavy responsibility for purchasing various products requested by close friends.” Despite the differences between them, these two aspects share the same basis—to maintain and reinforce guanxi. From the standpoint of Chinese tourists, buying gifts for, and/or purchasing products requested by, guanxi parties can function as a way to not only repay obligation and indebtedness accumulated before travel but also lay the foundation of future favor exchanges and open up new doors for reciprocity in the long run (Gold, Guthrie, and Wank 2002).
Settings as a fourth element of tourist shopping practices
Besides the three elements proposed by Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012), a noticeable theme that has emerged from the travel blogs can be labeled as settings. The term settings in this article broadly refers to the places where tourist shopping takes place. Settings in the tourist shopping context can be applied at multiple scales. Taking Chinese tourist shopping in Australia as an example, the settings can include the destination—Australia, the cities listed in the itinerary, and the specific shopping venues such as department stores. Based on the present analysis, it can be argued that settings should be added as a fourth element of tourist shopping practices.
First, tourist shopping practices in essence are carried out in unusual environments. Spatially, tourism involves a person moving from his or her usual place of residence to a destination where most tourist activities occur (Leiper 1979). The nonordinary settings mean that the shopping practices conducted in the tourism environment are different from that in daily routine. This is especially true in the case of Eastern tourists shopping in Western countries, or vice versa. The differences between home and destinations in, for example, culture, language, and regulations require tourists to have a certain level of knowledge and skills to enact shopping practices and sometimes can become obstacles to the completion of shopping processes. For instance, language barriers and limited payment methods have been found to negatively impact the shopping experiences of Chinese tourists in America (Xu and McGehee 2012).
Also, destinations function as core consideration filters for tourist shopping decisions. Every destination has its iconic products, which constitute important sources of the destination image formation among tourists (Beerli and Martin 2004). For example, France is the home of some famous vintage wines; Switzerland has a reputation for producing some of the world’s best watches. Accordingly, tourists in general would be more likely to purchase wines from France and watches from Switzerland rather than vice versa. This statement is confirmed in Zhu, Xu, and Jiang (2016) where French wines and Swiss watches are commonly bought by Chinese tourists in Europe, with the associated destination images and meanings shared within their social networks. Destination matters in tourist shopping practices. The selection of destinations to a certain degree indicates the direction for consequent shopping preferences.
In addition, tourist shopping practices differ across different shopping venues. For example, British tourists commonly bargain in independent shops and local markets in Turkey whereas far less evidence of bargaining activities is reported in more formal commercial outlets such as shopping malls (Kozak 2016). Different kinds of shopping venues couple with the availability of different variety of products and different streetscapes and servicescapes (Murphy et al. 2011), which provides an essential clue for explaining the differences in tourist shopping practices. Night markets, for instance, are spaces bustling with noise and excitement where tourists relax with others while they explore and browse for unique items at the right price (Ackerman and Walker 2012). Shopping malls, however, act as a medium for the contemporary dynamics that serve to create an ambience of placelessness, while at the same time offer new appeal for tourists, such as the latest fashion and passing time (Shim and Santos 2014).
Based on the 40 travel blogs, the key features of the settings element of Chinese tourists’ shopping practices in Australia can be described as follows. Australia on the whole is not perceived as a shopping paradise by Chinese tourists. Products in Australia do not necessarily have price advantages over that in other destinations, especially when it comes to international brands. Nevertheless, Australia is the country of origin of diverse products that Chinese tourists like to purchase. The image of Australia as a country “riding on the sheep’s back” (M-20) has been deeply ingrained in the mind of Chinese people. This image might explain why Australia is commonly associated with superior wool and related products. Also, products made in Australia are associated with safety, trustworthiness, and good quality by Chinese tourists. For example, M-05 listed health care products as must-buys in Australia and explained, “(Australia) is far away from other continents. No pollution. Various products like naturally derived fish oil, are absolutely pure natural.” It is no surprise that the Australian-made label was one of the main criteria for Chinese tourists to choose products.
The major Australian cities where the shopping practices of Chinese tourists took place included Sydney (27), 1 Melbourne (27), Cairns (10), Gold Coast (9), and Brisbane (6). These cities can be further grouped into two tiers based on their frequencies of occurrence in the travel blogs: Sydney and Melbourne clearly stand out as the first-tier shopping cities, while the others can be treated as second-tier. Considered in conjunction with their travel itineraries posted in the blogs, it can be argued that the shopping practices of Chinese tourists occur in almost all the cities they visit in Australia, with the last stop being considered as the most important and convenient place to conduct shopping practices. A whole day or even several days in the city from which Chinese tourists fly back home are often devoted to accomplishing shopping tasks. As Q-06 wrote for his last day in Australia, “Today we have a clear target. It will be a shopping day.” But to reserve the stay in the last Australian city as shopping time is not always a wise choice. As can be exemplified by M-17, “We chose Sydney as our last stop so that we would shop a lot there, but it turned out that Sydney was not a shopping paradise at all. Probably because there were too many Chinese tourists there, many popular products were out of stock. We regretted very much that we did not buy them before travelling to Sydney.”
Just as Chinese tourists purchase a wide variety of products, they also patronize a wide variety of shopping venues. According to the 40 travel blogs, popular shopping venues for Chinese tourists in Australia cover tourist attractions/precincts, pharmacies, supermarkets, department stores, airports, shopping malls/centers, and local markets. These venues are not always mutually exclusive. The Queen Victoria Market, for example, is not only a notable local market in Melbourne but also a well-known tourist attraction. It is also obvious that some places seemingly irrelevant to tourism have become primary shopping venues for Chinese tourists. As shown in Figure 2, M-06’s wife was selecting vitamins in a Coles supermarket. The favor of Chinese tourists toward Australian utilitarian goods might explain why the shopping practices of Chinese tourists have expanded into retail sectors that conventionally are not included in the tourism industry. Further, different shopping venues have different meanings for Chinese tourists. For instance, China Town might be a good choice to look for souvenirs, but is not seen a trustworthy place to purchase health care products.
M-06’s wife is selecting vitamins in a Coles supermarket.
Discussion
The present study draws on a social practice framework developed by Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012) to explore the key features of Chinese tourist shopping in Australia. Besides the three elements proposed by Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012), this study argues that settings, which refer to the places where tourist shopping occurs, should be added as a fourth element of tourist shopping practices. Firstly, tourist shopping practices are in essence conducted in unusual environments. Tourism involves a person moving from his or her usual place of residence to a destination. The non-ordinary settings entail that the shopping practices in the tourism context are different from that in daily routine. Also, destinations function as core consideration filters for tourist shopping decisions. Every destination has its own iconic products, which constitute important sources of the destination image formation among tourists. The selection of destinations indicates the direction for consequent shopping preferences. In addition, tourist shopping practices differ across different shopping venues. Different types of shopping venues connect to the availability of different variety of products and different streetscapes and servicescapes, which can explain the differences in tourist shopping practices.
Therefore, this study holds that a tourist shopping practice consists of four elements: materials, competences, meanings, and settings. These elements are not independent, but are interconnected and mutually shape each other (Shove, Pantzar, and Watson 2012). In Reckwitz’s (2002) terms, tourist shopping practice forms “a ‘block’ whose existence necessarily depends on the existence and specific interconnectedness of these elements, and which cannot be reduced to any one of these single elements” (p. 250). Specifically, materials include products that tourists purchase to take home during their travel and ICTs that are used by tourists to facilitate their shopping enactments; competences encompass knowledge and skills that are needed to perform tourist shopping and the relevant rules, regulations, and instructions; meanings comprise the purposes, beliefs, and shared understandings that represent the social and symbolic significance of participation in the practice; and settings involve the countries, visited cities, and specific venues where tourist shopping take places. Accordingly, key features of the shopping practices of Chinese tourists in Australia can be interpreted as follows (Figure 3).
Key features of the shopping practices of Chinese tourists in Australia.
Theoretical Implications
The present study applies SPT to tourist shopping research by exploring Chinese tourist shopping in Australia. Tourist shopping as a social practice is the basic unit of analysis, while tourists are decentralized as carriers of this practice. This stance is in stark contrast to that in most tourist shopping studies, where tourists are at the center of analysis and their satisfaction, motivation, and attitude (toward shopping) are primarily examined (Jin, Moscardo, and Murphy 2017). Accordingly, SPT opens up a new set of research questions, such as what tourist shopping practices constitute, how they change over time and space, and how they connect to other practices. Addressing these practice-based questions helps understand the tourist shopping phenomenon differently. For example, previous research often assumes that tourist shopping is solely the result of individual agency with little consideration of wider social forces. This assumption overestimates the autonomy that individual tourists have in their choice and relevant behaviors, while underestimating the extent to which shopping behavior is influenced by sociotechnical systems. The practice-based inquiries into tourist shopping shift the focus from the choices and values of individual tourists to the organization of dynamics of the actual shopping activities. As shopping practices reflect both individual agency and social structure, these inquiries are of great value in understanding the complexity of tourist shopping in a holistic manner.
Key features of the shopping practices of Chinese tourists in this study are uncovered based on a framework in which a tourist shopping practice consists of four interconnected elements—materials, competences, meanings, and settings. In the vocabulary of SPT, each element is an integral part that makes tourist shopping practices into the basic unit of analysis. These elements and their features, for example, pursuing brand value and product authenticity, are not seen as qualities of individual tourists but as attributes of tourist shopping practices as recognizable entities. Since these defining elements can be interpreted as nexuses of both doings and sayings (Schatzki 1996), using SPT to analyze tourist shopping needs to take routines and bodily actions, such as the use of mobile technology in this study, into the front stage to balance what tourists say with what they do (Warde 2005). In this way, SPT contributes to rectifying the overemphasis on attitudinal and perceptual aspects of tourist shopping under the dominance of psychological and marketing investigations.
The use of SPT thus helps to broaden the spectrum of what Chinese tourist shopping is and to identify a number of critical characteristics that have not previously been identified or considered in the COTS literature. As shown in this study, Chinese tourists commonly make shopping preparations before their travel and use mobile technology to facilitate their shopping enactments on site. It is also found that, although Chinese tourists hunt for souvenirs, the majority of products they purchase are utilitarian, not only for themselves but also for guanxi maintenance. These very large quantities of purchases made, and the extensive and structured planning and organization of shopping supported by intensive use of ICTs, are distinct features of Chinese tourist shopping practices, but have rarely been examined in the previous COTS research. Further, while guanxi was mentioned in some of the more recent studies (Gao, Huang, and Brown 2017; Hung et al. 2018; F. Li and Ryan 2018), the use of an SPT approach in the present study revealed more dimensions to this concept. Guanxi is not only involved in gift buying but also manifested in purchasing products requested by others.
Methodological Implications
Examining the Chinese travel blogs in this study raises methodological questions worthy of attention in cross-cultural tourism research. Travel blogs in the Western context are commonly deemed as manifestations of personal travel experience (Pan, MacLaurin, and Crotts 2007). Y. J. Lee and Gretzel (2014) provide both a literature review and evidence that travel blogs in non-Western cultures may be used for different functions and have different contents related to social identity within a collective. The present study found a pattern similar to that reported by Y. J. Lee and Gretzel (2014) in that the 40 travel blogs examined in this study were much more instrumental than expressive. The amount of practical information, such as suggestions and recommendations, indicates that these Chinese tourists blog with the goal of informing others more than expressing their own individual identity. This highlights the need for tourism researchers to pay greater attention to the equivalence of research methods in cross-cultural research.
Practical Implications
The findings of this study have implications for tourism marketing and management. First, Chinese tourist shopping deserves more attention from destination marketing organizations. Shopping is a pivotal and pervasive practice that Chinese tourists carry out, but it is often overlooked under the shadow of other destination attractions. For example, in Australia world-class nature-based attractions dominate tourism marketing (Tourism Research Australia 2013), whereas the value of tourist shopping is to some extent underestimated. As there is a great volume and variety of Australian products purchased by Chinese tourists to take home, shopping could be promoted as an attraction tailored for the Chinese market.
Second, the four elements and their features provide directions for intervening in the shopping practices of Chinese tourists. Again, in Australia the practice framework indicated that the utilitarian product–oriented shopping practices of Chinese tourists are much influenced by technology and concern about product safety and brand authenticity. This suggests that greater information on product ingredients and production processes and the cleanliness and quality assurance of Australian systems could be provided to support Chinese tourist purchase decisions. The widespread use of mobile apps directs Australian retailers to pay attention to these apps and to consider direct partnerships with the app providers to provide information about shopping opportunities while in Australia. The large quantities of some purchases made also provide an opportunity for Australian retailers to explore packaging and transport support options for Chinese tourists.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
This study has certain limitations. It should be kept in mind that the findings of this study are based on examining the shopping-related texts and images excerpted from 40 Chinese travel blogs. Although these blogs contain rich shopping narratives of both the bloggers and their group members, caution should be taken when extrapolating the findings to Chinese tourists to Australia as a whole. For example, the shopping practices of group tourists may have not been fully covered in the blogs. Also, travel blogs only represent a source of virtual documents that can be collected and analyzed (Bryman 2016). The findings of the current study are to some extent confined to what this specific data source can provide, with some features of the shopping practices of Chinese tourists possibly missing. More research, therefore, needs to be conducted to examine whether there are any other key features of the shopping practices of Chinese tourists in Australia not included in the findings of this study.
The current study provides some initial experiences of the use of SPT, which provides a new theoretical foundation for understanding tourist shopping phenomenon. A social practice not only figures as an entity, but also exists as performance (Shove, Pantzar, and Watson 2012). As Warde (2005) stated, the coordinated entity requires performance for its existence. Based on the key features of the four elements identified in this study, it would be interesting to explore how the shopping practices of Chinese tourists are performed on site. For example, a range of shopping venues could be selected to investigate the embodied actions of Chinese tourists and the involved social interactions when the shopping practices are carried out. The connections between tourist shopping and related practices also deserve further research attention. It can be noticed in this study that the shopping practices of Chinese tourists are interwoven with other popular practices in China, such as online shopping and gift giving. To understand how these practices affect each other contributes to unraveling the prevalence of Chinese tourist shopping and identifying innovative ways of managing tourist shopping development.
Footnotes
Appendix
Review of Literature on Chinese Outbound Tourist Shopping*.
| Publication | Research Objective | Theory Used | Data Collection (Sample) | Data Analysis | Destination |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Y. H. Lin and Lin (2006) | Assess mainland Chinese tourists’ satisfaction with shopping | Expectancy disconfirmation theory | On-site questionnaires (185) | Paired t-test, factor analysis, multiple regression analysis | Taiwan |
| T.-M. Choi et al. (2008) | Examine the shopping patterns and in-store shopping experiences of mainland Chinese tourists | n/a | On-site questionnaires (136) | Hypothesis testing | Hong Kong |
| Liu, Choi, and Lee (2008) | Explore the satisfaction level of Chinese tourists toward fashion retailers | n/a | On-site questionnaires (130) | Paired t-test | Hong Kong |
| Y. J. Wang et al. (2010) | Examine Chinese consumers’ propensity of shopping abroad from a cultural perspective | Hofstede’s cultural dimensions | On-site questionnaires (175) | Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multiple regression analysis | n/a |
| Liu et al. (2011) | Investigate the factors that affect Chinese tourists’ attitudes toward parent fashion brand and extended products | n/a | On-site questionnaires (208), interviews (10) | Pearson correlation analysis, linear regression analysis, t-test | Hong Kong |
| Lloyd, Yip, and Luk (2011) | Create an expanded measurement scale of customer perceived value and investigate the difference in service evaluation between local and mainland Chinese tourist shoppers | n/a | Focus group interviews (5), on-site questionnaires (1317) | Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), CFA, structural equation modeling (SEM) | Hong Kong |
| Xu and McGehee (2012) | Explore Chinese tourists’ product preference, shopping motivations, and their evaluation on shopping experiences | n/a | Phone interviews (10) | Content analysis | United States |
| Yeung and Yee (2012) | Explore the motivation and segmentation of Chinese cross-border shoppers | n/a | On-site questionnaires (194) | Cluster analysis, cross-tabulation analysis, discriminant analysis | Hong Kong |
| Kwek and Lee (2013) | Explore the consumption behavior of mainland Chinese corporate travelers | n/a | Participant observation, interviews (12) | Content analysis | Australia |
| Wong (2013) | Investigate Chinese shopping preference and service perceptions | n/a | On-site questionnaires (210) | Independent sample t-test, multivariate analysis of variance, zero-order correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis | Macau |
| Wong and Wan (2013) | Develop a scale that conceptualizes tourist shopping satisfaction and examine a model linking tourist facilities to shopping satisfaction and experience | n/a | In-depth interviews (54), on-site questionnaires (499) | EFA, CFA, Pearson’s correlation analysis | Macau |
| Chan et al. (2014) | Investigate the shopping motivation of Chinese tourists on luxury goods and the relevant segments | n/a | On-site questionnaires (284) | EFA, cluster analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA) | Not mentioned |
| Chang (2014) | Examine the effect of tour guide performance, tourist trust, tourist satisfaction, and flow experience on tourist shopping behavior | n/a | On-site questionnaires (486) | Factor analysis, CFA, SEM, ANOVA, regression analysis | Taiwan |
| Tsang, Lee, and Liu (2014) | Understand the shopping motivation of mainland Chinese tourists | Maslow’s hierarchy of needs | Focus group interview (1), on-site questionnaires (200) | EFA, ANOVA | Hong Kong |
| Lo and Qu (2015) | Examine the impact of service quality, satisfaction and perceived value on tourist visiting and shopping intentions | Theory of reasoned action | On-site questionnaires (778) | EFA, CFA, SEM | Hong Kong |
| Tse and Tse (2015) | Compare the legal approaches adopted by Mainland China and Hong Kong to tackle “zero-fare” tour in shopping tourism | n/a | Archival research | Thematic analysis | Hong Kong |
| M. J. Choi, Heo, and Law (2016) | Develop a typology of Chinese shopping tourists | Schwartz model of universal human values | Online questionnaires (511) | Factor analysis, cluster and discriminant analysis, chi-square test, ANOVA | n/a |
| Kong and Chang (2016) | Examine the relationships between travel motivations, souvenir shopping, and travel experience | n/a | On-site questionnaires (414) | Factor analysis, correlation analysis | Macau |
| Wong and Lam (2016) | Investigate relationships between cross-border shopping motives and store loyalty, frequency of visit and length of stay through the mediating roles of store loyalty program benefits and store shopping satisfaction | n/a | On-site questionnaires (320) | EFA, CFA, zero-order correlation analysis | Macau |
| Zhu, Xu, and Jiang (2016) | Explore the shopping behaviors of Chinese tourists in Europe and examine the meaning behind their behaviors | n/a | In-depth interviews (17) | Thematic analysis | Europe |
| Correia, Kozak, and Kim (2017) | Examine the conditions that are sufficient to motivate tourists’ decisions to buy luxury products | Fuzzy-set theory | Online questionnaires (314) | EFA, CFA, fuzzy-set analysis | Hong Kong |
| Gao, Huang, and Brown (2017) | Examine the influence of face on Chinese group tourists’ gift purchase behavior | n/a | On-site questionnaires (354) | EFA, CFA, SEM, multiple-group analysis | Australia |
| L. Lin (2017) | Investigate food souvenir-purchasing behaviors and the relationship between purchasing motives and product attributes | n/a | On-site questionnaires (318) | EFA, Pearson’s correlation analysis, multivariate ANOVA | Taiwan |
| Correia, Kozak, and Kim (2018) | Assess how materialism, the desire for status, and conformity motivate Chinese tourists to buy luxuries | n/a | Online questionnaires (314) | EFA, ordered probit model | Hong Kong |
| Hung et al. (2018) | Investigate Chinese tourists’ motivations for luxury shopping and their perceptions of Hong Kong as a luxury shopping destination | Self-concept theory | Focus group discussions (5) | Content analysis | Hong Kong |
| Hung, Guillet, and Zhang (2019) | Identify destination attributes chosen by Chinese tourists in luxury shopping and compare the traditional item-based and conjoint measurements | n/a | Interviews (30), two rounds of online questionnaires (600 each) | Content analysis, conjoint analysis, ANOVA | n/a |
| F. Li and Ryan (2018) | Examine Chinese tourists’ souvenir shopping motivations and experiences | n/a | Semistructured interviews (50) | Content analysis | North Korea |
This review covers articles on Chinese outbound tourist shopping published (or published online ahead of print) in ScienceDirect, Sage Journals, Taylor & Francis Online, and Emerald Insight from January 2000 to November 2018.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jingru Zhang, from the Department of Tourism at University of Otago, for doing back-translations.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the China Scholarship Council (Grant 201406870007).
