AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON INBOUND TOURISTS' SATISFACTION TO SICHUAN AFTER THE WENCHUAN EARTHQUAKE
TANG Yong1,2, QIN Jian-xiong1, LI Yan-hong2, ZHAO Jun2, LIANG Yan-tao2, LIU Yan3
1. Commercial College, CDUT, Chengdu 610059, China;
2. College of Earth-science, CDUT, Chengdu 610059, China;
3. School of Foreign Affairs, SCU, Chengdu 611731, China
Abstract Tourism industry is significantly affected by disasters. The Ms 8.0 Wenchuan Earthquake on May 12th, 2008 in the Longmen Shan region of China devastated south-western China, resulting in extensive damages and casualties. Nevertheless, Sichuan tourism industry had been severely affected by the earthquake and the negative impact is forecast to exert long-term. Almost two years since the May 12th Earthquake, it is of great significance to find out the inbound tourist's satisfaction to Sichuan. Literature review reveals that although tourist's satisfaction had been greatly concerned by the international scholars, it is not fully covered by domestic researchers. Under such context, this paper had carefully studied the inbound tourist's satisfaction to Sichuan after the quake. The research findings indicates that Giant panda, Friendly local people, Culture and history, Natural landscapes and Folk custom are regarded as the key factors to attract inbound tourists and their satisfaction to them are found to be relatively high, despite the fact that there is a huge disparity between the perception and satisfaction among those four factors. Secondly, the perception and satisfaction to some 8 factors from quadrant I, like weather and climate, leisure life style, accommodation facilities are both at relative good stage and need to be kept. Thirdly, factors form quadrant III such as accessibility, religion and tourist information call for special concerns to improve the satisfaction level as tourist's perception before visiting is quite positive; At the same time, the seismic landscapes emerging after the earthquake should not be overly promoted to target the inbound tourist market, which is to avoid inducing negative impression and perception of tourist environment in Sichuan. Fourthly, urban infrastructure the single one factor belongs to quadrantⅣ, which implies that the City image and service fnction of the regional key tourist destinations and transportation hubs like Chengdu, Leshan, and Emei shan should been great concerned. The reason why none of those factors go into quadrant II calls for further clarification.
2011, Vol. 26 
