A STUDY ON TRAVELLING BEHAVIORS OF XI'AN RESIDENTS
WANG Bin1, ZHAO Rong2
1. School of International Tourism and Hospitality Management, Dalian University of Foreign Languages, Dalian 116002, China;
2. Department of Urban and Resources, Northwest University, Xi'an 710069, China
Abstract Xi'an is a very popular tourist destination and one of the major tourist origins in china. A report shows that over 50 percent of the total residents here choose to spend their holidays and that tourism income turns out to be one of the leading sources for the city's economic development. To attract more tourists and to provide for better services as well, it is very important for the local government to have a scientific and feasible tourism development planning. Market research is the basis for the regional tourism development planning. Expecting to get first-hand information, the author and the other researchers conducted a survey among residents in Xi'an, during which nearly 1 000 samples are collected. Analyzing by the Social Science Process Software(SSPS), the authors have drawn some valuable conclusions which may provide constructive suggestions for the tourism planning of Xi'an. The paper analyzes the characteristics of the traveling behaviors of Xi'an residents, in which tourist destination choice behaviors and tourist flowing behaviors are given great emphasis. The findings show that the diversity and the strength of tourist demands have increased during the past years. The tourists' demands vary according to their profession background, but there is a common tendency that all tourists take sightseeing as their No.1 choice, which means to some degree the tourist products in Xi'an are comparatively simple and thus cannot satisfy tourists' various needs. Among the tourists' destination choice rankings, sightseeing and vacationing remain the top two. However, a dramatic change is that the purpose of enriching knowledge and broadening view has taken the place of visiting friends and relatives, which traditionally ranks the third on the list. It shows, on one hand, people highly value absorbing new information on their trip; on the other hand, Xi'an, known for its human tourism resources, has strong attraction towards culture-oriented tourists. When starting to discuss the recreational activity spaces of Xi'an residents, the authors find that the law of distance decline greatly influences the flowing direction and spatial distribution of tourist currents; in other words, the number of tourists decreases with the ex tension of distance.
2002, Vol. 17 
