Clustering of Chinese tourists to Singapore: an analysis of their motivations, values and satisfaction

✍ Scribed by Ah Keng Kau; Pei Shan Lim

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 108 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1099-2340
• DOI: 10.1002/jtr.537

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a survey through the use of a structured questionnaire of over 240 visitors from China to Singapore in February 2003. The main objective is to determine if these tourists could be effectively segmented based on their motivations for travel. The analysis of the survey data confirmed that they could be clustered into four main segments. Each of the segments was found to possess unique profiles in terms of demographic background, trip‐related characteristics and personal values. The segments were also assessed of their levels of satisfaction with various attributes offered by Singapore as a tourist destination. In addition, their overall satisfaction, likelihood of revisit and likelihood of making positive word‐of‐mouth recommendation to others were also determined. In all of these, the segments were found to differ significantly from each other. Finally, the implications of these findings were discussed and suggestions made as to how Singapore could effectively develop marketing strategies to attract these tourists, bearing in mind that China was the third largest tourist generating country for Singapore and they collectively contributed over S$300 million to the Singapore economy in 2002. In fact, tourist arrival from China increased further after SARS in 2003, reaching over 880,000 in 2004 and became the second largest tourist group after Indonesia. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.