CHINESE URBAN MATURE TRAVELERS' MOTIVATION AND CONSTRAINTS BY DECISION AUTONOMY

The work described in this article was supported by a grant from the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Project No. A‐PE89).

Abstract

This study investigated trip motivation of 800 Chinese mature travelers residing in metropolitan areas based on travelers' decision autonomy in planning domestic trips. A two‐step cluster analysis was conducted to segment respondents into mutually exclusive groups according to their autonomy on destination selection, financial source, and trip arrangement. An ANOVA was conducted to examine differences on motivation factors among emergent clusters. Moreover, the resultant clusters were differentiated by travel constraints (i.e., health related and socio‐demographic characteristics) using a logistic regression analysis. Significant relationships among mature travelers' trip autonomy, motivation, and constraints contributed to the understanding of urban mature travelers in China.

Keywords:

• Chinese traveler
• mature traveler
• motivation
• constraints
• decision autonomy
• domestic tourism

Notes

The work described in this article was supported by a grant from the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Project No. A‐PE89).