Study On The Chinese Tourists' Perceptions And Post-travel Behaviors Of Theme Parks

Theme parks, as a rapid development kind of Amusements that has distinct theme, attracted many concerns from enterprises, governments, academics and relevant agencies in the past half-century. According to the prediction of the World Tourism Organization, theme park is one of the three major trends of international tourism development at present and future, but it is also a high-input tourism project, that requires the high maintenance costs and the high threshold of the tourists. while in today's customers are God's era, tourists, facing many tourist scenic spots, have more options. Therefore, what kind of tourist scenic spots the tourists will choose, mainly depends on their perception and post-travel behavior. However, the study of tourists'perception and post-travel behavior of theme parks is extremely scarce. The lack of study in this field hinds the better development of theme parks.In this background, the paper has been set up. There are seven chapters in this paper:Chapter 1, Introduction. The reasons of Subject choosing, the main problems and contents, and the research methodology are the focuses discussion.Chapter II, Related research progress and Literature Review. The paper reflects and summarizes the research literatures of tourists'perception and post-travel behavior. According to the literature review, this paper, selecting Kaifeng Qingming riverside landscape garden as a case, studies its tourists perception and post-travel behavior. There is theoretical and practical significance. In theory, first, it is expected to expand and deep this current relatively weak field of tourists perception and post-travel behavior of theme parks. Second, it introduces and explores the research methods of this field. Third, it can lay the foundation for further study of tourists perception and post-travel behavior of Chinese theme parks. In practice, it plays a reference and directing role in analyzing tourists'psychology, marketing and attracting repeative customers.Chapter III, The concept of theme parks and the objectives of investigation. First, A thematic content analysis is applied to extract a set of common criteria from the 46 definitions, all of which are published from 1991 to 2006.Thus five core criterias are extracted, which are: distinct/specific subject, the modern artificial scenic spot/activity space/modern traveling destination, the leisure entertainment, man-made/simulation, special mind/creativity/special environment and atmosphere. Based on these five core criterias, a composite working definition for theme park is presented. It is that theme park is a modern man-made recreational scene, with distinct theme, special creation and climate. Second, based on the identification standards of theme parks, the paper tests Kaifeng Qingming riverside landscape garden, and draws a conclusion that Kaifeng Qingming riverside landscape garden meets the identification standards of theme parks.ChapterⅣ,Ⅴ. Establishing the relation model and assessment scale of domestic theme parks and public perception of domestic tourists perception and post-travel behavior of theme parks. Given the inconsistent study scale and measure criteria, and invalidity of the research methodology, this paper, through interviews of domestic experts and case study of Kaifeng Qingming riverside landscape garden, establishes the assessment scale of Chinese tourists'perceptions and post-travel behaviors on theme parks by means of statistical analyses of factors and corresponding project designs, and the examination of reliability and validity. According to this assessment scale, there are 3 dimensions and 65 items of tourists expectation, perception, perceived value, satisfaction, attitude and post-tour behavior. It is demonstrated that this assessment scale can be used to measure Chinese tourists'perceptions and post-travel behaviors of theme parks. Chapter VI, Testing the model of Chinese tourists'perceptions and post-travel behaviors of theme parks. First, the paper analyses the expectation-perceived dimension differences of Kaifeng Qingming riverside landscape garden from three aspects that are disaccord between expectation and perception, the expectation-perceived performance and the analysis of I-P of tourists. Second, based on the assessment scale, the hypothetical relations of tourists expectation, perception, perceived value, satisfaction, attitude and post-tour behavior are advanced, and the relations of the factors are tested. Finally, the effect of social and demographic information on the tourists expectation, perception, perceived value, satisfaction, attitude and post-tour behavior are analyzed.Chapter VII, Research conclusions and prospect. The shortcomings are rational summarized and retrospected, and research trend and development prospect are put forward in the future.