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UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cultural Tourism Products: A Case Study in the Xi’an City

Yining Zhang , University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Spring 2011

Degree Type

Professional Paper

Degree Name

Master of Science in Hotel Administration

Hotel Administration

First Committee Member

Robert H. Woods, Chair

Number of Pages

Nowadays, culture has been a major driver of tourism. Cultural tourism is another form of tourism by involving cultural elements. Some people traveled specifically to gain a deeper understanding of the culture or heritage of a destination. In order to satisfy tourists’ cultural needs and wants, cultural tourism products typically attracts consumers by the cultural attributes. A cultural attest is not a cultural tourism product unless it transforms itself into products that could be consumed by tourists. The market value of cultural tourism can be realized by cultural tourism products. This paper is to explore the development and evaluation of cultural tourism products. By studying a case of Xi’an in China, the paper explores how cultural tourism products work in a real world. The evaluation system examines the quality of cultural tourism products provided by the Xi’an city. The experience of developing such products can be learned through the case study.

China – Xi’an; Cultural tourism; Cultural tourism products; Heritage tourism; Souvenirs (Keepsakes); Tourism in Xi’an

Disciplines

Asian Studies | Sales and Merchandising | Sociology of Culture | Tourism | Tourism and Travel

File Format

Degree grantor.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Repository Citation

Zhang, Yining, "Cultural Tourism Products: A Case Study in the Xi’an City" (2011). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones . 1077. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/2462753

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Analyzing cultural localization in online tourism promotion. A PhD thesis resume

1 International tourism involves the on- and off-line activities of people from a distinct cultural background (Sabiote-Ortiz, Frías-Jamilena, and Castañeda-García, 2014). Prospects can have a virtual experience of the destination while still being home through websites and popular social networks, such as YouTube and Instagram (Molinillo, Liebana-Cabanillas, Anaya-Sanchez, and Buhalis, 2018). Research shows that, on the one side, cultural background can influence the way companies and organizations promote themselves online (Men and Tsai, 2012). On the other side, people behave differently depending on their cultural orientation (Sabiote-Ortiz, Frías-Jamilena, anf Castañeda-García, 2014); a phenomenon that has also been observed on social media (Goodrich and de Mooij, 2014). Consequently, researchers as well as practitioners have highlighted the importance of adopting techniques to bridge the communication gaps that may arise from the cultural difference between the sender (e.g., the tourism provider) and the receiver (e.g., the prospect tourist) (see, for example, Tigre Moura, Singh, and Chun, 2016).

2 Addressing these issues, the practice of localization describes a series of methods aimed at adapting the online multimedia content and layout of a sender’s channel, like a website, to the culture-bound preferences and needs of a specific audience (Tigre Moura, Gnoth, and Deans, 2014). Stemming from the theory of the self (Dolich, 1969), the argument that supports this (rather costly) choice states that as people are part of a certain culture, made up of specific system of beliefs, perceptions and values, they will more likely engage with marketing messages that resonate with such background (Zhang and Gelb, 1996). In other words, from a communication standpoint, localization represents an effort from the sender’s side to adapt message and channel to the culture-bound preferences of the receiver. While the practice of localization has received attention from the marketing literature, a lack of research has been found for what concerns the tourism field (Tigre Moura, Gnoth, and Deans, 2014); an area of great interest, given the numerous occasions in which tourism providers and visitors can encounter cultural barriers, both off- and on-line.

3 Addressing this research gap, the present PhD dissertation investigates the presence of cultural differences in tourism promotion as well as the use and effects of cultural adaptation on people’s perceptions and intentions. The topic has been addressed following an adaptation of the Online Communication Model (OCM) (Tardini and Cantoni, 2015), a framework that divides online communication into four main pillars: content, design, managers and visitors ( Figure 1 ). In addition, a mixed-methods approach has been adopted to address the practice of localization from distinct perspectives, combining different types of data – from interviews to experiments.

4 Following an introduction to tourism, culture and localization, in Chapter 2 (Mele and Cantoni, 2018) we explored the different definitions of localization, the activities it involved as well as its possible limitations. This was achieved by triangulating academic research with industry reports and examples of localization from the web, like tourism destinations’ websites. Among the main findings of this “helicopter view”, we identified different types of localization activities, including the adaptation of cultural values. These represent “broad tendencies to prefer certain states of affairs over others” (Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov, 2010, p. 9), and they have been found to influence consumer behavior in tourism (Hsu and Huang, 2016; Sabiote-Ortiz, Frías-Jamilena, and Castañeda-García, 2014). Cultural values can be analyzed and compared at the national level along virtual constructs called “dimensions of national cultures” (Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov, 2010, p. 29). Their adaptation for tourism promotion can be, for instance, emphasizing activities with family and friends (for Collectivism) rather than values such as independence and self-reliance (for Individualism) (Tigre Moura, Gnoth, and Deans, 2014). In addition to Collectivism-Individualism (COL-IND), other dimensions of national culture include Power Distance (PD) (Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov, 2010) – that is, the relative importance assigned to authority – and Low- vs. High-Context communication (HC-LC), which describes the importance assigned to contextual information by different cultures (Hall, 1976).

Figure 1. Main chapters of the PhD dissertation

5 Following the interesting as well as debated notion of national culture and cultural values (Jones, 2007), in Chapter 3 (Mele, Kerkhof, and Cantoni, under review ) we investigated whether cultural tourism promotion on Instagram reflected the cultural values of destinations. More precisely, we explored whether the cultural differences in terms of COL-IND, PD and HC-LC were also reflected by the multimedia content (text and image) published by the official Instagram accounts of the National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) of Chile, Portugal, USA and the Netherlands. This was achieved via a manual (for text and images) and automated content analysis (for text only) of 1744 Instagram posts, promoting cultural attractions, published by the above mentioned NTOs. Overall, findings showed that (cultural) tourism promotion varied across the four destinations, highlighting the importance of localizing online communication when addressing culturally distant markets.

6 In Chapter 4 (Mele and Cantoni, 2017), we explored whether Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) gave importance to cultural differences in tourism promotion and whether localization represented a relevant set of techniques to enhance their marketing communications. This was achieved by conducting interviews with marketing managers and IT experts from 11 DMOs, members of the European Travel Commission (ETC). The study revealed that localization represented an important set of activities to market the destination to international audiences online. Most interviewees declared, indeed, that their DMOs would adapt textual elements; other adaptations included destination themes and images.

7 Following the findings from Chapter 4 and the literature on cultural adaptation, in Chapter 5 (Mele, Kerkhof, and Cantoni, 2020) we analyzed the effect of localizing cultural values on people’s perceived image and willingness to visit a UNESCO World Heritage site, Kinderdijk – located in the Netherlands. To achieve this goal, we conducted two highly powered experiments with a 2 (COL vs. IND) × 2 (high PD vs low PD) × 2 (country: Portugal vs. UK) between-subjects design, with a total of 2039 respondents from Portugal and United Kingdom. Surprisingly, findings showed limited benefits (at best) of localizing cultural values for cultural tourism promotion, suggesting a high tolerance of potential visitors towards web content showing incongruent (non-localized) cultural values.

8 Considering the findings of the studies conducted in this PhD dissertation, future research should consider analyzing the effects of localizing cultural values with participants from culturally as well as geographically distant countries – possibly in a real setting. Finally, we suggest exploring the effectiveness of other forms of localization, like the adaptation of information granularity – that is, content depth and scope – according to the cultural background of the reference public (see, for example, Mele and Cantoni, 2018).

List of illustrations

Electronic reference.

Emanuele Mele , « Analyzing cultural localization in online tourism promotion. A PhD thesis resume », Via [Online], 18 | 2020, Online since 27 December 2020, connection on 13 March 2023. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/6341 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/viatourism.6341

About the author

Emanuele mele.

UNESCO Chair to develop and promote sustainable tourism in World Heritage Sites, USI – Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano (Switzerland)

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