Today's shopping is not incidental tourism activities in the past but the activities being equivalent to basic factors of lodging, meals and sightseeing, etc to be reevaluated as an independent tourism attraction. These days, number of foreign tourist...
Today's shopping is not incidental tourism activities in the past but the activities being equivalent to basic factors of lodging, meals and sightseeing, etc to be reevaluated as an independent tourism attraction. These days, number of foreign tourists who visit Korea has increased continuously to produce economic added values by their buying activities while staying in Korea to become more important.
The purpose of this study is to pay attention to those facts and examine relations between variables such as satisfactions, attitudes, information by word of mouth and revisit ideas by using images of shopping attractions, etc and to investigate from psychological point of view that has influence upon decision-making in the tourism behavior.
This study set the year of 2008 to be reference year when the questionnaire survey was done, and to examine images of tourism destinations where tourists like to do shopping and to limit spatial range to Myeong-dong, Dongdaemun Market, Namdaemun Market, Insa-dong and Itaewon, etc in Seoul where foreign tourists like to visit excluding airport duty free shops and department stores, and to select the Japanese and Chinese tourists who experienced shopping at Myeong-dong, Dongdaemun Market, Namdaemun Market, Insa-dong and Itaewon, etc during vacation.
The findings were as follow:
Not only reliability survey but also feasibility study was done to find out statistical use of the material. The reliability of each factor was tested to have 0.8 or more of Cronbach's α that had high reliability, and feasibility study was done to do exploratory factor analysis by using SPSS for Windows and to do confirmatory factor analysis by using AMOS and to get feasibility.
And, correlation analysis was done to investigate correlation between factors prior to test of hypotheses to have largely significant relations between each factor. In this study, hypotheses that precedent studies set were tested by using structural equation models. At fit statistics analysis, relations between measuring models of factors and theoretical structure models were found to be very much high and to be appropriate in the use of measuring variables: And, explanation of structure models of measuring models by using measuring questions was rated to be high.
The findings of structure models test were as follow:
Firstly, cognitive image had significant influence upon emotional image.
Secondly, shopping attractions' cognitive image had significant influence upon tourist satisfactions and tourist attitudes.
Thirdly, shopping attractions' emotional images had significant influence upon tourist satisfactions and had no significant influence upon tourist attitudes.
Fourthly, tourist satisfactions at shopping attractions had significant influence upon tourist attitudes.
Fifthly, tourist satisfactions at shopping attractions had significant influence upon tourists' information by word of mouth and revisit ideas.
Sixthly, tourist attitudes at shopping attractions had significant influence upon tourists' information by word of mouth and revisit ideas. As a whole, hypotheses based on existing theories had similar results with precedent studies.
The findings suggest implications as follow:
Firstly, shopping items that foreign tourists preferred varied depending upon nationality and shopping attractions. The tourists bought foodstuffs such as Kimchi and laver, etc, cosmetics and perfume, garment and shoes, etc the most: Therefore, the items that have competitiveness at each shopping area or are preferred by tourists shall be supported and characterized to develop preferred shopping items firstly depending upon each shopping area. In other words, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Korea National Tourism Organization and competent ward office at shopping attractions shall set up a consortium to investigate shopping tourism products continuously that foreign prefer and to make use of the results as marketing material that can investigate foreign tourists' desires at development of shopping tourism products.
Secondly, shopping activities varied depending upon tourists' nationality: The Japanese tourists had higher tourist attitudes and satisfactions than the Chinese tourists had, and the former visited again and gave information by word of mouth actively. To elevate the Japanese tourists' satisfactions, not only online community but also off line community shall be used to supply and share shopping related information and to share shopping experience so that shopping tourism website shall be opened to manage it continuously. And, to let the Chinese tourists who were less satisfied with shopping tourism visit shopping attractions continuously, shopping items of each selection attribute at Myeong-dong, Dongdaemun Market, Namdaemun Market, Insa-dong and Itaewon, etc shall be exactly investigated to launch either differentiated events or segmented marketing mix activities to elevate satisfactions.
Thirdly, the Japanese tourists had high scores at personal service factors of cognitive images, while the Chinese ones had high scores at shopping places and shopping product factors. The Japanese tourists were rated to be high at attraction factors of emotional images, while the Chinese ones were done to be high at rests and modernity. To strengthen personal services that the Chinese tourists were rated to be low and the Japanese ones were done to be high, employees at shopping attractions shall be continuously trained to have public relations, and each shopping attraction shall make efforts to elevate images by providing the Japanese tourists with diversified products, good quality and competitive prices, etc. And, the Tourism Education Institution of the Korea National Tourism Organization shall develop tourism education programs for employees at shopping attractions, and not only marked price system but also service quality authentication system shall be introduced to elevate tourists' satisfactions from point of view of software.
Fourthly, the findings of images at shopping attraction depending upon nationality shall investigate advantages as well as disadvantage continuously. And, the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute that is a national research institution shall open a specialized department to develop concrete marketing strategy techniques from point of view of human resources and physical resources depending upon shopping attractions. And, characters of images of shopping attractions as well as shopping items shall be produced depending upon nationality to make use of them to be sales promotion kits and to encourage tourists' revisit. Hanryu star, that is to say, Korean Wave star as well as celebrity shall be appointed depending upon each nationality to be a PR ambassador and to make use of them actively to let tourists in each country have affirmative attitudes toward Korea.
This study examined images of local shopping attractions and tourists' satisfactions, tourists' attitudes, and tourists' information by word of mouth and their revisit ideas, etc by theoretical studies as well as empirical analysis to verify values of image factors of shopping attractions.