基于负面IPA的入境游客对华环境风险感知研究

A Study on the Environmental Risk Perceptions of Inbound Tourists for China Using Negative IPA Assessment

近期,中国中东部地区雾霾天气成为威胁公众出游安全、损害游客身心健康的一大元凶。伴随国际社会广泛关注和全球媒体密集传播,雾霾天气对中国国际旅游吸引力的削弱作用已初现端倪。根据对入境游客的调研发现,现阶段,以雾霾为代表的大气污染及与之相关的行动限制、安全威胁、健康威胁、游憩限制等系列风险因素,构成入境游客对华环境风险负面感知的主要方面。为应对这一问题,文章立足入境游客环境风险感知测量,提出并运用负面IPA工具,分析入境游客对华环境风险感知规律,在对入境游客环境风险感知进行比较分析的基础上,找出入境游客对华环境风险感知的关键特征。

Recently, haze has become a great threat to public travel safety, and a major source of damage to physical and mental health in eastern China. More and more research and global media attentions have focused on the harmful influences of the haze weather. From this scrutiny has emerged the fact that haze negatively affects Chinese tourist attractions, and the declining visitor numbers are proof of this. Based on an analysis of the responses of inbound tourists, we discovered that haze as the represen- tative of air pollution, as well as associated food safety, health anxieties, and other risks in China, de- crease the quality of tourist experiences. This paper reported a range of haze -related issues that constitute the main aspects of inbound tourists＇ perceptions of adverse environmental risks in China. To identify how inbound tourists experience and evaluate environmental risks, the researchers designed a questionnaire that covered 27 measures after a literature review and communication with a sample of inbound tourists. After a series of presurveys, we incorporated 24 of these measures in our final survey instrument. Finally, we used the IPA technique to analyze the data obtained from the investigation. The IPA technique is a basic diagnostic decision tool that facilitates the identification of improvement prioritization. Because of the negative performance of environmental risk itself, there is a need to adjust the traditional IPA method. The original IPA method was initially used only to analyze positive performance problems. In this context, the research proposes a ＂negative IPA matrix＂ to analyze inbound tourists＇ perception of environmental risk in China. We compared four dimensions of the perception of risks： possible movement restrictions, health threats, security threats, and recreation restrictions. The study found that key features of environmental risks perceived by inbound tourists for China were ＂poor air quality＂ and ＂low visibility＂, and related issues. Moreoyer, the study found that inbound tourists generally had high perceptions of environmental risk, and consequently gave low marks to the China＇ s tourism environment. The evaluation of the four dimensions all showed higher negative values than the mean. In particular, the perception of threats to health in risk evaluations is much higher than the perceived actual strength. We believe that there are two main factors that account for this special phenomenon. This paper presents and proves the effectiveness of the negative IPA tool in the study of tourist risk perceptions. We also propose strategies as countermeasures for these perceptions. For example, inbound tourists feel most strongly and give the worst evaluation on poor air quality and low visual amenity, when these are compared to the other seven factors. Our preferred strategy is to ＂concentrate here＂. To provide specific strategies to deal with the adverse effects of recent haze on the China＇ s inbound tourism market, governments and marketing organizations should pay attention to this impact, and take measures to deal with it. However, as we were limited by constraints on the research, the study has several shortcomings： first, the survey sample was mainly selected from Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The research therefore needs to be combined with similar research on other tourist cities in East China; and second, there were few questions on the socio-cultural environmental risk factors for tourism in the questionnaire, and follow-up studies can do better in this respect.