Grouping tourist complaints: what are inbound visitors’ problems with Chinese destinations?

ABSTRACT

This study aims to examine inbound tourists’ complaints when visiting China and how these complaints differ in terms of tourist demographics. Tourists’ spontaneous reviews on TripAdvisor were analysed through manual coding and online automated software. Seven categories of complaint attributes with seventy-eight specific items were identified. The results showed different relationships between tourists’ demographic characteristics (age, gender, origins and travel pattern) and complaint items. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed with regard to Chinese tourism management as well as future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Online tourist complaint
• China inbound tourism
• age
• gender
• origins
• travel pattern
• TripAdvisor
• Leximancer
• tourism marketing
• Asia Pacific

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China (to Li Zhiyong) [Grant Number No.17XGL012], Sichuan university (skqy201770) and Sichuan university research cluster for regional history and frontier studies.