Australia as a holiday destination: young Americans vs young Chinese Malaysians decision making

Australia as a holiday destination: young Americans vs young Chinese Malaysians decision making

International holiday travel represents a significant investment to both the tourist, in terms of time and money expended in the decision, and to thc destinations, in terms of marketing and infrastructure investments requircd for a successful international holiday reputation. Deciding on a particular destination is often a very involving and complicated proccss. Traditional models of tourist decision making have previously only made cursory acknowledgment of the role of culture. However, there is considerable evidence from the literature that different cultures place different values on criteria important to such a decision.

This paper therefore considers: (a) whether traditional tourist decision models per se are appropriate for describing and predicting the decision processes involved; and (b) whether there are any significant differences between the cultural groups in terms of the decision criteria used by international holiday travellers when choosing a holiday destination. Specifically, this study compares the decision processes, as well as the influence of motivations, perceived risk and cultural values on destination choice used by a convenience sample of young American and Chinese-Malaysian business major students in terms of Australia as a holiday destination. A three staged process was employed in this study, consisting of four focus groups, a mailed out survey sent to 150 students in America and in Malaysia, and four in-depth interviews.

The results of this study suggest that, in general, the young people experienced a desire to travcl, they searched for information to assist in the decision about a destination and type of holiday, they then chose a destination and travelled. As such, it appears that whilst a generic model of tourist destination decision process may bc used with the two cultural groups to give an overview of the decision steps, a numbcr of factors influences this proccss. Indeed, considerable cultural variation was shown to exist in terms of: (a) the value systems of each group; (b) the factors influencing the process (specifically in relation to motivation for travel and perceived risk); and (c) the specific destination choice criteria used to make the destination decision.

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