Tourist Expectation and Tourist Experience in Cultural Tourism

Chiang Rai is one of the most famous destinations in Thailand due to its rich tourism resources especially with many cultural resources and well-organized and developed tourism infrastructure. As a consequence, Chiang Rai has targeted to promote and develop cultural tourism in order to attract more foreign tourists to visit and satisfy their needs and expectations, which is seen as one of the most important aspects in the current tourism development strategies in Chiang Rai. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to compare the gap between pre- and post-experience of foreign tourists who visited Chiang Rai towards their expectation and experience on＂ （1） arts and crafts; （2） life style of local people; （3） local food; （4） festivals and local traditions; （5） ethnic/indigenous life style and culture; and （6） cultural heritage. The quantitative approach has been chosen to conduct the study by using a questionnaire with 400 foreign tourists and One-way ANOVA was the statistic used for gap analysis between tourist expectation and experience. The data collection included the analysis of government documents and the relevant literature. The ~mding of the study illustrated that cultural tourism plays an important role in tourism development in Chiang Rai and the gap between pre- and post-experience of tourists. However, in order to minimize the gap between pre- and post-experience of tourists and maximize their expectation and satisfaction, both government and private sectors should have an in-depth understanding towards the management of cultural tourism. The tourist needs more quality cultural products and foreign language skills from staffand local people.

Research on the Construction and Application of Service Quality Evaluation Models for Scenic Spots:Taking Chongqing Ciqikou as an Example

In the current environment of increasingly fierce competition in the tourism industry,service quality has become crucial for enhancing the competitiveness of scenic spots.This paper uses the SERVQUAL model to design a service quality evaluation questionnaire that captures the gap between tourists’expectations and perceptions,using the Ciqikou Scenic Spot as a case study.Data collected from field surveys are used to comprehensively and meticulously evaluate the service quality of the Ciqikou Scenic Spot.The analysis results show that the scenic spot,with its unique folk culture experience and beautiful ecological environment,has certain advantages in terms of service quality.However,significant deficiencies exist in infrastructure and environmental hygiene.Accordingly,targeted improvement suggestions are proposed to further enhance the service quality of the Ciqikou Scenic Spot and meet the increasingly diverse and personalized needs of tourists.This study provides not only a specific service quality improvement strategy for the Ciqikou Scenic Spot but also a valuable reference for other tourist attractions.

A Widening Tourism Deficit

During the week-long National Day holiday(October 1-7),nearly 480 million tourist trips were made by Chinese people,a yearon-year increase of more than 10 percent,according to the latest survey from the China Tourist Academy.The figure 480 million represents a larger number than the populations of Germany,France,U.K.,Italy,Spain and Japan combined.