Destination perceptions of Chinese tourists: A comparison between Japan and South Korea

Abstract

It has been widely accepted that competitive advantage is the key to the success of organizations, regions and countries (Porter, 1980). In the tourism industry, a country’s potential depends on its ability to maintain competitive advantages in its delivery of goods and services to tourists. There has been a great deal of effort focused on establishing suitable strategies and operating procedures to maintain a level of high competitiveness (Kozak & Rimmington, 1999). This paper presents findings and conclusions from an examination of the competitiveness of two tourism destinations, Japan and South Korea, while using China as a baseline. The study will compare the destination competitiveness of South Korea and Japan by using both qualitative and quantitative approaches to determine the correlation between destination competitiveness and tourism demand for each destination by using attribute importance and performance. More specifically, the research objectives are: 1) to identify Chinese tourists’ perceived importance of both destinations, 2) to compare the differences between perceived importance and performance, 3) to compare the competitiveness between Japan and South Korea, and 4) to find out the correlation between tourism demand and destination competitiveness.