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Abstract
Market diversification, one critical means by which tourism-dependent small island states can maintain sector resilience and destination life cycle stability, requires understanding of the destination loyalty of strategic new inbound markets such as China. An online survey of 1260 Chinese adults with previous travel experience to the Maldives identified positive proclivities with respect to revisitation and recommendation intentions as well as agreement that Chinese visitors were well catered for. Sample diversity, however, was demonstrated by cluster analysis, which revealed dominant ‘highly loyal’ (31.2%) and ‘loyal’ (37.1%) segments along with specialized clusters ambivalent about the catering (14.3%) or the revisitation intent (17.4%). Loyalty was strongly associated with older, married and higher income visitors who were aware that the Maldives is an Islamic country and who included the capital city of Male in their itinerary. Such information is invaluable for assisting target marketing and product development strategies, but situates in a context of bilateral asymmetry in which the Chinese government can destabilize small island tourism through decisions that curtail visitation by otherwise loyal residents.
摘要：对于依赖于旅游业的小型岛屿型国家来说, 市场多元化是其保证旅游弹性以及目的地生命周期稳定性的重要途径。这就要求这些小型岛屿旅游目的地深入的理解其战略性质的新入境旅游市场, 比如中国, 的目的地忠诚度。本研究通过网络问卷的方式, 调查了1260名曾经前往马尔代夫旅游的中国成年游客, 深入剖析了其对马尔代夫的积极倾向, 包括重游意愿, 推荐意向以及旅游需求满足程度等。通过层次聚类的方法对多元化样本进行分析后, “高度忠诚”（31.2%）以及“忠诚”（37.1%）的细分聚类占有主导地位。另外两个细分聚类, 对旅游需求满足程度（14.3%）以及重游意愿（17.4%）方面呈现出特别的矛盾心态。研究发现, 对马尔代夫忠诚度较高的中国游客往往年纪稍长, 已婚, 同时拥有较高的收入。他们知道马尔代夫是一个伊斯兰国家, 并且在他们游览的行程中往往包括首都马累。这些研究结果对于开拓目标市场以及制定旅游产品开发策略异常保贵。但是, 在双边不对称的背景下, 中国政府亦可以通过政策性的限制, 影响其居民的访问意愿, 从而影响小型岛屿国家旅游业的稳定性。
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Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.