A Comparative Analysis Of First-time And Repeat Visitors' Spatial-temporal Behavior

First-time visitors and repeat visitors are important tourism market segments. The study of first-time and repeat visitors' spatial-temporal behavior will help to improve the quality of the visitors' experience; provide theoretical basis for tourism management,planning and development of tourist destination government; provide theoretical guidance for product development and marketing of tourism enterprises.As main industry, tourism is of vital importance to the overall development of Hainan.The construction of international tourism island and "Maritime Silk Road" have posed great challenges to the development of tourism in Hainan. The research on first-time and repeat visitors' spatial-temporal behavior of tourists in Hainan is of great significance to the development of tourism in Hainan.In view of this, this study applies the theory of time geography into the study of the difference between first-time and repeat visitors' spatial-temporal behavior, using the chi-square test, cluster-analysis, cross-analysis and other mathematical statistics and comparative research method, and try to explain the causes of the differences, then put forward suggestions on the tourism development in hainan.This study found that there are the following differences in the spatial-temporal behavior of first-time and repeat visitors in Hainan:(1)Temporal behavior. Both first-time and repeat visitors' main stay time is 5 days, but repeat visitors' stay time is more diversified, the ratio of long stay is also higher than first-time visitors; both their stay time is shorter about 0.5 days than planned, but the first-time visitors' implementation degree of plan is higher than repeat visitors; in each attractions, the stay time of first-time visitors gets shorter, gradually with the advance of itinerary, while the stay time of repeat visitors maintains 4 hours. (2)Spatial behavior.The main tourist attractions which first-time visitors visited are "large gathering, small dispersion" distribution model, while the ones of repeat visitors are "small gathering, large dispersion" distribution model, and first-time visitors'visit rate is higher than repeat visitors, visit rate in each tourist attraction and "big Sanya tourism circle"(Sanya, Baoting, Lingshui), while in other city and county, repeat visitor'visit rate is higher. (3)Models of spatial-temporal behavior. Both first-time and repeat visitors have 9 types, each types of first-time visitors are of obvious features, while the ones of repeat visitors have no significant difference except spatial behavior.This study also explains the differences of first-time and repeat visitors'spatial-temporal behavior. The influencing factors mainly include internal factors and external factors. Internal factors include motives, preferences, forms and experiences of travel; external factor include tourist attractions and tourism facilities.Based on the above research,at last, this study puts forward suggestions on the development of tourism in hainan.The results of this study have greatly enriched the research in this field, and provide some reference for the development of tourism in Hainan. However, the conclusions of this study are only applicable to the island tourism destination, and lack of large-scale study of temporal behavior, the exploration of the reasons for the difference is also not enough,all these need to be imporved in the future.