The diffusion study on Chinese outbound tourism —Based on “diffusion of innovations” theory

Abstract: From 1983 in which year Chinese people started being allowed to travel to the first outbound destination to nowadays that more than 150 countries have signed the ADS (approved destination status) with Chinese government, Chinese outbound tourism had a great progress in 32 years. During these years, more and more Chinese tourists could be seen in different places in the world. In 2014, the number of Chinese outbound tourists firstly achieve to over 100 million. The numbers are predicted to continue by 2020. It is meaningful to put Chinese outbound tourism as an object and discover its future development. Therefore, the aim of this study is set as to analyse the future diffusion of Chinese outbound tourism. The available theoretical foundation is diffusion theory (Rogers, 2003). Its mature and practical theoretical system guides the research framework of this study. This theory is reliable for analysing and discussing the diffusion of Chinese outbound tourism from some aspects such as S-shaped curve, communication channels, adopter classification, etc.  A questionnaire survey and some hypothetical indicators are designed in this study to fulfil the aim and research questions. Results are described from several aspects. The analysis of results prove that Chinese outbound tourism could be reckoned as an innovation. Finally, conclusions show that Chinese outbound tourism is currently going through the developing process between ‘innovators’ and ‘early adopters’. If the influencing factors which derived based on diffusion theory could be developed or solved positively, it is possible for Chinese outbound tourism to develop continually following the S-shaped curve in the future. The influencing factors has been studied out. They are the communication channels, the conscious gap between people who live in cities and people who live in towns and villages, the wealth gap between rich people and poor people. Not many related implementations are given out in this study, which needs future researches to explore.