In-place or out-of-place? Host–guest encounter under ‘One Country, Two Systems’

Abstract

This study aims to examine the mutual perceptions between Hong Kong residents and Mainland Chinese visitors when they share mall spaces in Hong Kong, further to investigate if and in what circumstances potential conflicts exist between them. Mixed methods, including a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews, were used as a response to the call for including qualitative methods for more thorough understanding of the host–guest relationship. The survey findings suggest that Mainland tourists were perceived negatively while local residents were perceived positively in both Perception of Behaviour and Perception of Crowdedness. Three place identities are also analysed from in-depth interviews, namely Hong Kong residents being ‘in place’, Mainland visitors being ‘out of place’, and Hong Kong residents being ‘outsiders’. The politics of mobility arising from their conflicts leads to and increases fluidity of their place identity. This study contributes to the literature by examining perceptions on an individual level among the nationals of differing national identities in one single country. It also offers insights for authorities in managing relationships and tensions currently existing in tourism spaces. Such an analysis using the concepts of insideness–outsideness and in-place/out-of-place could be extended to a wider scope of relationships by including different stakeholders in tourism.

Keywords:

• host–guest relationship
• mall landscape
• in-place/out-of-place
• insider–outsider
• mobility
• Hong Kong–China

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Hui Oi Chow Trust Fund [grant number 263690551]. We would like to thank the two anonymous referees for their comments that greatly improved the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Individual Visit Scheme was implemented on 28 July 2003 in four Guangdong cities (Dongguan, Foshan, Jiangmen and Zhongshan) as a tourism liberalisation scheme under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement. It allows mainland Chinese residents with permanent household registration in 49 Mainland cities to visit Hong Kong on an individual basis. The endorsement holder can stay in Hong Kong for not more than seven days in each visit (HKSAR Tourism Commission, 2013).