Sichuan Province Earthquake Effects On Tourism Tourism Essay

✅ Paper Type: Free Essay	✅ Subject: Tourism
✅ Wordcount: 3442 words	✅ Published: 1st Jan 2015

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Sichuan province is located in the Sichuan’s plateau in the inland of Southwest China; it is commonly referred to as the land of abundance. It has an enormous territory and rich in resources and is one of the most ethnically diverse areas in China. This province has several historic and cultural sites and other natural and manmade tourist attraction sites. The attraction sites and the famous Sichuan cuisine normally characterized by hot flavor, and incomparable beauty make the province a wonderland that attracts millions of tourists from all over the world. Sichuan is also a major industrial region in China; the province has both heavy and light industries. Plans were underway of developing this region into a high tech industrial centre.

A massive earthquake, the famous Wenchuan Earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 on the Richter scale, hit western Sichuan, China in 2008. According to official figures, released 65,185 people were confirmed dead. Over 68,636 of them were from Sichuan province, approximately 374,171 of others were reported injured and scores of others missing. Millions of people were left homeless and a lot of private and public property destroyed, the economic loss incurred was approximated to be over ¥ 1,000 billion. The earthquake extremely affected all economic sectors in the quake-hit areas and tourism was no exception. Study of the impacts of the quake on tourism enhances the hypothesis of tourism and more significantly serving as the basis for planning and policymaking.

Problem statement

The earthquake is believed to have killed 54 tourists in Sichuan province. During the period, over ten thousand tourists were stranded and over 30 flights and 300 vehicles used to evacuate them. The tourist industry lost over $ 7.24 billion in the earthquake. With regard to the contribution of tourism to the region’s economy, there have been major reconstruction efforts after the earthquake. Destructive catastrophes, such as the Boxing Day tsunami in the Indian Ocean (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), the Wenchuan Earthquake (2008), the Samoan tsunami (2009), and the Haiti earthquake (2010) have lately put the limelight on natural disasters, with real time TV footage screening the events as they unfold. International media issue warnings to tourists to stay away, while local economies experience immediate and widespread impacts from the loss of tourism earnings, and endure many months of uncertainty before a return to anything resembling normal business operation.

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Tourism destinations are highly sensitive to interruption by natural disasters because tourism operations are reliant on functioning critical infrastructure, including electricity, sewage, communications and water; lifelines which are inevitably damaged and disrupted for a prolonged period following a damaging event (Ritchie 2009). Flow-on effects from disasters also include significant disruption to the supply and distribution chains of even the most prepared businesses (Lee & Harrald 1999). Economic losses are attributable to a decline in damage to infrastructure (Laws et al. 2007). The interdependencies of the tourism industry have been one of its great strengths, allowing it to rapidly expand and diversify. However, natural disasters can produce immediate, cascading failures within the tourism sector that have the ability to reverberate within communities and countries for many months and years. This study highlights physical and social impacts of large magnitude earthquakes.

According to Sichuan’s local media, reconstruction in the Sichuan tourism sector has been separated into three levels. The initial stage was trying to attract the domestic tourists to the quake hit areas, followed by focusing on local tourism enterprises to restore global tourism market. Finally reviving the entire tourism sector by or after the year 2010 and make it the leading sector in the region. This earthquake affected the potential tourists’ perceptions on the Sichuan tourism many still feel that the destination is not safe enough to visit. The Sichuan’s tourism agency has to spend a considerable budget to convince the potential tourists that the place is safe to travel and that the attractions are still as appealing as they were before the quake.

Objectives of the Research Study

The main objective of this study is to investigate the potential tourists’ perceptions towards the Sichuan tourism after the earthquake. This study has not been carried out there giving rise to the knowledge gap that needs to be filled. The findings from this research will fill this knowledge gap and add to the current literature. Findings from this study will also be very significant in identifying the determinants that can be changed to design the best strategies in order to attract more tourists and satisfy their needs. The Sichuan tourism industry is expected to improve services and develop strategies to attract potential tourists and make them feel comfortable in Sichuan. Specifically the objective of this study is to help understand the potential tourists’ perception towards the post-earthquake Sichuan tourism, and determine what factors are considered significant by the potential tourists wanting to travel to Sichuan.

Conceptual framework

Scott, N. & Laws, E. (2005). Tourism crises and disasters: Enhancing understanding of system effects. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, vol. 19, (3), pp. 151-160.

The conceptual framework above articulates a set of complete values for disaster management strategies, to the benefit of tourism businesses and destination bureaus. This model follows a linear crisis procedure that is pre-event, emergency, intermediate, recovery and resolution. It goes further to provide insights for successfully assisting the tourism industry and the government in putting up disaster management strategies. Strategic implementation comprise of disaster communication and control, stakeholder collaboration and resource management. The tourism industry should learn from experiences such as the Sichuan earthquake. The work of emergency organizations as well as tourism organizations become very crucial, while that of tourism enterprises is usually less critical during pre- or post crisis periods.

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Historical background of problem area

Tourism in the area accounted for 8% of county gross domestic product prior to the earthquake (Lim, 2009). The earthquake cost Sichuan province US$7 billion in lost tourism revenue (Zhiling & Xianyu 2009). In contrast to the consequences of the Chi-Chi earthquake, tourism to the area rebounded in less than a year as domestic visitors flocked to see areas devastated by the quake (Lim, 2009). Government investment in the tourism industry in the region hopes to cash-in on the earthquake tourism phenomenon, with work currently taking place on the construction of a number of earthquake museums in the province, and a quake-relief training centre in Beichuan (Zhiling & Xianyu 2008; Lim 2009). Local officials hope to increase tourism earnings to as much as 20% of regional GDP. One local Beichuan man describes his feelings about the earthquake; the earthquake was a catastrophe, but it will be good for the tourist industry (Lim 2009). The travel motivations of domestic Chinese tourists include observing the power of nature, to pay their respects to the dead, and to be reminded of the frailty of life (Liu 2009). According to various online news reports, as many as 19 million tourists visited Sichuan province during the National Day celebrations this year (Global Times 2009). The business of earthquake tourism, it seems, is booming in devastated parts of the epicentral region.

Tourism disaster management

Tourism is a deliberate and peacetime activity, is very susceptible to disparities caused by external environments that may compromise the tourist experience (Santana, 2003). Given that perception is reality in the tourism industry, a negative image results from a catastrophe of any kind, even if inexcusable, and will hinder potential tourists and lead to negative buying behavior. Globalization exposes the tourism industry to greater political, economic, social, and technological changes (Ritchie, 2004). Meanwhile, the butterfly effect further magnifies small-scale crises in one part of the world to other parts. Examples can be found among previous events, regardless of type, such as the Wenchuan Earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 on the Richter scale, hit western Sichuan, China in 2008, and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (Santana, 2003). The negative impact of crises on the tourism industry is more significant among destinations that are highly reliant on tourism as their major source of revenue.

The world has become increasingly catastrophe prone (Coombs, 1999: Richardson, 1994) and all the economic sectors are on the edge of chaos, Fink argues (1986), Researchers have provided many definitions for crisis. Faulkner (2001) contended that crises are induced by internal factors, or actions or inactions of the organizations, whereas disasters are by external forces, comprising of natural phenomena. Stafford, Yu, and Armoo (2002) further classified external factors into physical, social, and human environment. According to them natural disasters like those that earthquakes and technological failures are affiliated with crises in the former situation, and confrontations, epidemics and war are allied with crises in the latter situation.

Foreign visitor’s satisfaction

Hartman developed a customer satisfaction concept in 1993 that consists of three constructs: the cognitive, affective, and systemic (Hartman, 1993). Customer satisfaction is defined by customer’s post-purchase assessment of service delivered and comparison of customer’s expectations and the actual service experience (Hunt 2007).This concept was further refined as the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm by Oliver (2000), with four elements: pre-purchase expectations, perceived performance, disconfirmation and satisfaction. Several approaches to performance analysis in tourism satisfaction such as expectation-performance, importance-performance, disconfirmation approach, and performance-only approach have been used. In terms of travel, Moutinho (1997) notes that this post-purchase construct is primarily a function of pre-travel expectations and travel experiences.

Similarly, Pizam, Neumann, and Reichel (1998) define tourist satisfaction as the results of the comparison between a tourist’s experience at the destination visited and the expectations about the destination. Tourism researches have been interested in measuring the overall levels of tourism satisfaction with their experiences in particular destinations as well as satisfaction with specific attributes at service encounter level such as in a hotel or at an attraction. Foster (2000) while another focus in studying tourism satisfaction is to determine satisfaction with a series of service encounters as experienced in a hotel, in a travel agency or in a tourist attraction (Macintos, 2002). Research interests in methodologies for studying tourism satisfaction have been comprehensive summarized by Kozak (2001).Tourism satisfaction with a destination has been examined as a gap analysis between pre-travel expectations and post travel experiences (Schofield, 1999).

Based on the cumulative nature of tourist’s experiences, Scott, Tian, Wang, and Munson (2005) developed a tourism satisfaction model. Bowen and Clarke (2002) articulated a context Tourism satisfaction level can be attributed to different destination attributes including tangible produces and prices to intangible service quality and the friendliness of the local people (Ryan,1999). The deliveries of good core services alone cannot guarantee customer satisfaction, and overall satisfaction and repurchase intention are differentially influenced by the various service encounters experienced in a chain of service activities (John &Tim 2000).

Durocher (1994) argued that the speed of recovery depends on three factors: the extent of damage caused by the natural disaster, the efficiency with which tourism partners bring their facilities back online, and an effective marketing message that clearly states that the destination is available to the public (Durocher). Although the first two factors concern the short-term immediate response, the third involves a long-term continuous process that aims to restore consumer confidence. Conventional approaches to crisis management implicitly assume that the primary goal is to restore the precrisis equilibrium level. However, Faulkner and Vikulov (2001) argued that because of the lingering effect of a disaster, trying to achieve the precrisis equilibrium level could be a redundant (or suboptimal) approach with regard to long-term sustainability. The chaos created by a crisis can therefore lead to a creative process with potential for new configurations (Faulkner & Vikulov 2001). In other words, the crisis can be an opportunity for innovation, with the launching of new marketing campaigns and development of new products through cooperation with industry partners. These new products and marketing plans should be tailor-made to attract identified key generating markets, because resources are always limited during hard times.

Another important strategy is to nurture a healthy and positive relationship with the major media. From the long-term perspective, the restoration of customer confidence is the focus of post disaster recovery, and this can only be done by building a positive image of the destination (Santana, 2003). By inviting major media to visit the area affected, not only the availability of the destination is demonstrated but also the elimination of travel barriers for potential tourists.Although often associated with enjoyment, pleasure, relaxation, and safety, tourism is by nature an industry susceptible to variations in the external environment, including crises and disasters (Santana, 2003.). In times of unpredictable events, government plays an essential role in the response and recovery stages needed to minimize damage and bring life back to normal (Peterson, 1995). The reaction of government agencies and the tourism industry is a critical topic in tourism crisis management that has not yet been fully addressed (Faulkner,2001). This study represents one of the first attempts to fill this research gap by examining the post earthquake tourist’s perceptions of Sichuan tourism.

METHODOLOGY

The study will be a qualitative research, as the qualitative methods will be more appropriate in understanding meanings and experiences relevant to the research. Quantitative methods might however be used if the need arises. Qualitative methods have however, been criticized for not having the scientific firmness. Some researchers have gone further in an attempt to provide systematic approaches to assess its quality. McInnins-Dittrich (1996), for example, identified several dimensions along with which the reliability of quality studies can be assessed: transferability, dependability, credibility, authenticity, and conformability. Guided by the above-mentioned principles, the research will recognize the importance of providing reliable, verifiable, and credible data.

The research design will involve a mixed methods approach to help understand the potential tourists’ perception towards the post-earthquake Sichuan Tourism. To provide an in-depth interpretation of the aims, certain variables will be identified to ensure that all data is utilized successfully to reach the goals of this study, these variables include visitor characteristics, trip characteristics, satisfaction, factors that influence the visitors’ decision to visit a destination, and Sichuan’s tourism marketing image. These variables will be fundamentally developed from the examination of previous literature, and the needs for further research as expressed by Sichuan Tourism Administration.

Data collection

Secondary and primary data collection methods will be used in the research study. The secondary methods to be employed will include literature review, and policy and legislative analysis. Primary methods will include focus group discussions stakeholder consultations, and focused interviews with key informants, interviews with potential tourists in different regions and surveying the attitudes and beliefs across various regions.

Survey

Considering the questions to be answered by this research, a comprehensive social cultural instrument will be developed. Perceptions, attitudes, and opinion questionnaire (PAOQ) will be informed by literature review and the social cultural factors that are relevant to the target regions. They will also be scientifically validated before administering them across a representative sample in each target region. Using a likert scale, the PAOQ will be a self-reporting assessment of perceptions, attitudes and the opinions of the potential tourists that will be designed for both domestic and international tourists from different regions. The questionnaire will contain several sections: post earthquake perceptions, the attitudes to the Sichuan tourism, opinion on the required action to promote the tourist attractions. The researcher hopes to administer the questionnaires within group settings.

Sampling method will be used for the PAOQ. The researcher aims to administer 500 questionnaires across the targeted regions. The questionnaires distribution will depend on the region’s population with regions with the high population getting more questionnaires. The researcher also aims for 50-50 representation of the males and females. The key variable will include gender, education, socioeconomic status, age and rural/ urban.

Data analysis

The researcher will then analyze the PAOQ data using the statistics package for social sciences version 16. The given variables will be analyzed and their contribution to the topic measured. Frequencies will be used to provide the statistics and graphical displays that will be useful in describing the variables to be measured. Cross tabulation, method will also be employed to measure the association of variables. To investigate the possible gender effects, ANOVAs test will be used and conducted between the men and the women on all dependent variables. Differences between the childhood sexual abuse group and the non- childhood sexual abuse group in interpersonal, social, and dynamic personality will be examined using a one-way ANOVA test. The researcher however has the mandate to use any other data analysis technique depending on the kind of data that will be obtained from the field

Summary

This chapter has described the methodological approaches that will be used to investigate the main objectives of this study. Both objectives will predominantly use qualitative method but where need be the quantitative methods will be employed. It also explains how data will be collected that is through primary and secondary methods. Further describes the researchers’ survey. Finally, the methods and tolls of data analysis are fully explained research findings and interpretation will be discussed in the next chapter.