Shen, Suyan (2009). Visitors' Intention to Visit World Cultural Heritage Sites: Empirical Evidence from the Cases of Cologne and Suzhou. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.
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Abstract
This study is undertaken against the backdrop of the rise of heritage tourism as a favorable tourism product all around the world. First of all, this dissertation attempts to study German and Chinese visitors' intention to visit world cultural heritage sites in the framework of the theory of planned behavior (TPB), with the additional constructs of past experience and city/culture tour involvement. As two cases, the survey data were collected by a self-administrated questionnaire in Cologne, Germany and Suzhou, China, which are both the cities with world cultural heritage sites. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the research model and hypotheses in the empirical study. Besides, in order to investigate cross-cultural differences in visitors' intention to visit world cultural heritage sites and related travel behavior, descriptive analysis and the two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests provide insights of demographic items, travel characteristics, as well as the factors in the proposed research model by comparing surveyed German and Chinese visitors. The result shows that attitude in the Cologne case, and perceived control, past experience and city/culture tour involvement in the Suzhou case are valid predictor constructs for visitors' intention to visit a world cultural heritage site within the next 12 months. The empirical study suggests that some differences do exist between German and Chinese visitors. It shows the behavior and attitude, psychological needs, and experience of visitors in world cultural heritage sites, which are useful for travel providers to recognize segments and serve effectively the different types and groups of visitors.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD thesis) | ||||||||
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-29962 | ||||||||
Date: | 2009 | ||||||||
Language: | English | ||||||||
Faculty: | Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences > Department of Geosciences > Geographisches Institut | ||||||||
Subjects: | Geography and travel | ||||||||
Date of oral exam: | 23 November 2009 | ||||||||
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Refereed: | Yes | ||||||||
URI: | http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/2996 |
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