Understanding the smartphone usage of Chinese outbound tourists in their shopping practices

Haipeng Jin and Wenjie Cai

Current Issues in Tourism, 2022, vol. 25, issue 18, 2955-2968

Abstract: Chinese outbound tourist shopping was a prominent phenomenon in many destinations worldwide before the COVID-19 pandemic, but smartphone usage in it had rarely been addressed. This study draws upon social practice theory and the theory of affordances to examine how Chinese tourists use smartphones during their shopping process in Australia. Based on a combination of participant observations and semi-structured interviews, the study argues that Chinese outbound tourists use smartphones not only to improve their shopping competences but also to regulate the meaning making of their shopping practices. Further, these links are made through the actualized affordances of smartphones including, among others, looking for products based on stored images, accessing product information in Chinese, and communicating with others at home on shopping for them. This study unravels the entanglement of smartphones, Chinese outbound tourists and their shopping practices, and provides directions for maximizing the value of smartphones in shopping-related tourism management and marketing, especially to the Chinese market.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13683500.2021.2014421 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:rcitxx:v:25:y:2022:i:18:p:2955-2968

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcit20

DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2021.2014421

Access Statistics for this article

Current Issues in Tourism is currently edited by Jennifer Tunstall

More articles in Current Issues in Tourism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().