DISCREPANCY OF TOURISM DESTINATION CHOICE AMONG THE DIFFERENT INCOME GROUPS: A CASE STUDY OF BEIJING, WUHAN AND XI'AN
BAI Qian-wen1, WU Jin-feng1,2, LUO Wei1, WU Bao-qing1, SHI Xiao-teng1, ZHANG Tian-ge1
1. School of Geography and Tourism, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, China;
2. Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Tourism Information Science, Xi'an 710119, China
Abstract Tourism destination choice is an important field of tourism research. Exploring the characteristics and differences of tourism destination choice behaviors of tourists from different income groups can not only enrich the tourism destination choice research content, but also can provide a basis for tourism market segmentation and precision marketing. Taking citizens of Beijing, Wuhan and Xi'an as examples, we compare the visiting frequency of different income groups to the same target scenic spots, and discuss the characteristics and differences of tourism destination choice behaviors of different income groups. The study finds that there are significant differences in tourism destination choice behaviors among different income groups. Firstly, the visiting frequency of high-, medium-, and low-income groups all attenuates with increasing distance, but the decay rate is different. The higher of the group income is, the lower the decay rate. Secondly, when choosing a tourism destination, different income groups tend to choose scenic spots that are close to where they live, or well-known, or located in developed areas. Low-income groups are more prone to select nearby and/or economically developed tourism destinations than those with high or middle incomes. Thirdly, different income groups have different space of high visiting frequency. The higher of the group income is, the larger the areas with high visiting frequency. Fourthly, the preference scale to scenic spots among high-, middle- and low-income groups are different. The higher of the group income is, the higher the preference scale to the scenic spots.
BAI Qian-wen,WU Jin-feng,LUO Wei等. DISCREPANCY OF TOURISM DESTINATION CHOICE AMONG THE DIFFERENT INCOME GROUPS: A CASE STUDY OF BEIJING, WUHAN AND XI'AN[J]. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, 2020, 35(5): 150-160.
2020, Vol. 35 
