Korean Golf Tourism in China: Place, Perception and Narratives

Jinah Park, Alastair M. Morrison, Bihu Wu and Yeung Kong
Additional contact information
Jinah Park: Department of Tourism Management, Shenzhen Tourism College of Jinan University, Shenzhen 518053, China
Alastair M. Morrison: National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Kaohsiung 82444, Taiwan
Bihu Wu: International Centre for Recreation and Tourism Research, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Yeung Kong: Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 999077, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-20

Abstract: Tourism is a critical, cross-cultural social behavior in contemporary society and provides diverse experiences based on different regional resources in destinations. This research identified the attributes associated with Korean golf tourists’ images of seven destination regions in Mainland China. A content analysis of 328 golf tourists’ blogs indicated that each region had different combinations of destination attributes, but these were partially hidden in vivid descriptions of playing experiences. The narratives were coded with 15 golf destination attributes with 136 headwords and they reflected both place-centred images and interactions through perceptual experiences with different social groups. The golfers greatly appreciated congestion control at courses and social interaction during their tours, including the services of local human resources and play partners . The seven Chinese golf destinations had different perceived characteristics and relationships with South Korean society. Thus, they had dissimilar destination images for Korean golf tourists. Historical ties and geographical proximity played important roles, including, for example, the significant presence of ethnic Koreans in northeast China.

Keywords: golf tourism; destination image; content analysis; South Korea; China; blogs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1055/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1055/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:4:p:1055-:d:139319

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().