Shopping tourism in Hong Kong: a survey of tourist perspectives

Shopping Tourism Hong Kong

A study of shopping tourism: Is Hong Kong a good place for shopping?

Background to the research Issue 2

Discussion of relevant literature

Proposed research Methodology and analysis

Sampling Method

Demographic Characteristics

Analysis of the results from Survey

Survey Question 7- Who are the main companions for visit in HongKong?

Background to the research Issue

Within the past three decades shopping tourism at international level has been increased hugely the reason being advancement in the airline industry as well as lessening in traveling expenses. This is evident from the latest data which shows that in 2008 international arrival was 922 million which is an increase of 4.47% since in 2005 it was 800 million (UNWTO, 2009, p.4). Although world economy faced economic recession in 2008, yet it did not impact on the tourism rate which increased by 1.99% in the period of 2007-2008.

Tourism now has become an industry which has a significant role in the economic growth of any country. Visitors coming to a destination spend money on shopping, hotel accommodation, eatables, and transportation as well as on entertainment and thus contribute to increase the gross domestic product (GDP). Tourism also helps to create employment and provide socio-economic development. The data show that during the year 2008 almost 80 countries were able to earn 1 billion USD from international tourism (UNWTO, 2009). Figure 1 represents the international arrivals during the period 1999-2008

Shopping and tourism are among the most important cross-border activities for generating positive social and economic changes. Shopping and tourism are interconnected in many ways, and the relationship between the two phenomena is rather complex. Although shopping tourism is a phenomenon well-known in common parlance, constructing a scientific framework and definition for it is rather complicated. Shopping is one of the most common and enjoyable leisure activities among tourists, and in many cases it represents a basic motivation for travel. The relationship between shopping and tourism can be divided into two categories. The first one, where the primary purpose of the tourist trip is to shop, is termed 'shopping tourism'. The second is called 'tourist shopping', where shopping is done as a secondary activity during a trip which might be motivated primarily by something else (e.g.sun bathing, ecotourism, cultural tourism, etc.) (Dallen, 2005)

The current research paper is aimed at exploring the concept of shopping tourism. Particularly the researcher will focus on exploring the scope of Hong Kong for being a shopping place for tourists. For this purpose the researcher conducted survey with 70 tourists at Honk Kong to know whether HongKong is a good place for shopping or not.

Figure 1-International tourist arrivals

Objectives of the Study

Previously many research studies have been conducted on the concept of shopping tourism involving different destinations. (Ko, 1999; Lehto, Cai, O'Leary, & Huan, 2004; Mok & Iverson, 2000; Moscardo, 2004; Oh, Cheng, Lehto, & O'Leary, 2004). These studies have focused on the shopping behaviors, consumer satisfaction, products and services' quality in the tourism destinations. Some have focused on the prices of services and goods in different tourist destinations. Shopping preferences and choices of tourists as well destinations choices related to shopping have also been discovered. However no research study has focused on exploring Hong Kong as a shopping place.

Research Question

In the current study, the author addressed main question of;

Is Hong Kong a good place for shopping?

To address this research question the researcher focused on the main variables like price, quality and variety and thus following three sub-questions were focused and addressed;

1. Are tourists satisfied with the quality and prices of the goods at Hong Kong?

2. Are prices important for tourists?

3. Are tourists satisfied with the variety of goods at Shopping Mall in Hong Kong?

4. Is environment of shopping malls satisfactory?

Proposed research Methodology and analysis

Doing research in shopping is rather difficult, since the relevant shopping data are not routinely collected or compiled in official records. Consequently, our research was based on a standard survey questionnaire, comprising 16 questions. The survey was carried out at Hong Kong and questionnaires were get filled by the visitors at different main shopping malls of Hong Kong. The visitors were targeted, because it was the purpose of the study to get direct information from the tourists and their shopping perceptions and behaviors towards Hong Kong shops and products, answers were based on the subjective opinion of respondents. Altogether 70 questionnaires were fully completed

Data Collection

Many researchers have considered qualitative research methods to measure and forecast tourism demand of a destination. These types of method are used to obtain an understanding of human behavior as well as factors behind these behaviors. The researcher used survey questionnaire as an instrument to collect data for the study. The survey questionnaire was developed based on the review of the previous literature. The survey aimed to sample both traditional and modern retail environments. The questionnaire was developed in English as the majority of tourists are familiar with the English.

The questionnaire consisted of 16 questions. Survey question 1-4 were aimed at exploring the demographic characteristics of the survey population. In these questions the tourists were asked to inform about their occupation, gender, age and nationality. Survey question five and six asked about their stay and visit to Hong Kong. Survey question seven asked about the companions during visit i.e., family, spouse, friend. Survey questions 8, 9 and 10 asked the tourists about their income, the amount they want to spend on shopping and the products they want to buy at Hong Kong.

Survey questions 11, 12 and 13 were aimed at exploring tourists' perceptions about the environment, quality of service and environment at Hong Kong shopping malls. The last three questions asked the participants of the survey to express level of their satisfaction about their shopping experience at Hong Kong and also whether they desire to come to HK again for shopping. The purpose of including these questions was to know whether Hong Kong is a good place for shopping tourism.

Sample Size

The target population of the research was tourists who had come to visit Hong Kong and do shopping during 6 October to 20 October. A total of 3 shopping markets located at Hong Kong were selected for conducting survey. A total of 70 tourists were selected to participate in the survey. The rule to choose this sample size was taken from Stevenson (1999) who suggested that for every variable there is a need to choose 15 cases. Through this study the researcher measured four variables. These were the 1) quality of goods at HK 2) the transportation at HK 3) Shopping choices of tourists and 4) perception of Prices

Scholars in the field have also suggested that researcher should choose the sample size beyond this minimum limit (Hair, 2006). Bases on Stevens suggestions the sample size would be 60 and whereas the author decided to conduct research with 70 participants based on Stevenson suggestion.

Sampling Method

The researcher adopted convenient method of sampling. As the target of the research was tourists visiting Hong Kong the survey was conducted at two main shopping malls at Hong Kong. The avenue of the research was duty free shops at Tsim Sha Tsui which is a famous shopping district in HK. Yet at shopping malls there is less time for tourists therefore tourists were approached at their hotels and researcher himself distributed the survey and afterwards collected from the hotel management who were requested to cooperate in the research.

Results and discussion

The results of the study were manually entered and analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Following is a detailed discussion of the results of the study.

Demographic Characteristics

The author included four questions in the questionnaire including the nationality, gender, age and occupation. Data tables 1-4 represent the division of the survey participants according to their demographic characteristics. The results show that majority of the participants were more than 50 years old; American and Canadian, business men and belong to male sex.

Table 1-Division of tourists based on their nationality

Australia

20

United Kingdom

17

United States

18

Japan

10

Singapore

5

Table 2-Division of tourists based on their occupation

Business Men

20

Retired Army Personal

8

Engineers

7

Educationists

10

Retired Government Officers

13

Travel Writers

12

Total

70

The result are expected as mostly retired persons and above 50 are found to be going on tour and visiting different places as they have time as well as money to spend in travel and tourism. Nationality results are also significant whish show that majority of tourists belonged to European countries and there were less number of tourists from Asia and Africa

The results from the occupation are also significant as we come to know that majority of the respondents of the study were business men followed by retired government personnel.

Table 3-Division of tourists based on their Age

20-29years

20

30-39 years

17

40-49years

18

over 50 years

10

Total

70

Table 4-Division of tourists based on their gender

Male

49

Female

21

Total

70

Analysis of the results from Survey Question 5

Survey question 5 asked the participants whether it was their first visit in Hong Kong to which majority of the participant's replies as 'yes'. This shows that usually people do not want to visit a destination several times and there is tendency to explore new destinations every time.

Table 5-Is this your fist time travel in Hong Kong

Yes

50

No

20

Total

70

Survey Question 6

Survey question 6 asked the participants about the period of their stay at Hong Kong. The results given in Table-6 show that majority of the tourists were coming to stay for a period longer than a week. The results show that 24 out of 70 stated their stay was more than 8 days. While there were 12 who wanted to stay for 6-8 days and 13 were arrived to stay less than 5 days.

Table 6-How long do you plan to stay in HongKong?

1-2days

5

3-5days

8

6-8days

12

Above 8 days

45

Total

70

Survey Question 7- Who are the main companions for visit in Hong Kong?

Survey question 7 asked the tourists to point out their companions for visit in HK. The purpose of including this question was to explore the preferences of tourists for companionship while going for shopping abroad. The results show that majority of people prefer family or want to come alone. There were only 4 who had come with colleagues. (Table-7)

Table 7-Main Companion for visit

30

Family Member

35

Colleague

4

Classmate

0

Other

1

Total

Survey Question 8

Survey question 8 asked the participants about their personal monthly income. The reason behind including this question was to explore the trend of shopping abroad with different level of monthly income. The results given at Table-8 reveal that majority of the tourists had a monthly income of more than 20000 (27%) followed by 80-12000 (21%). There were also 17% having monthly income between 5000-8000 and only 7% with monthly income below 5000.

The results are significant and show that mostly individual with higher income level tend to go abroad for shopping.

Table 8- Monthly Personal Income: (HKG)

Below 5000

5

7%

5000-8000

12

17%

8000-12000

15

21%

12000-15000

9

13%

15000-20000

9

13%

Above 20000

20

29%

Total

70

Survey Question 9

Survey question 9 asked the participants about their choices of shopping... The results are varied against this question and are not significant. The Table-9 show mostly tourists buy shoes or clothes while the number of people who buy cosmetics, electric goods and other accessories are also significant

Table 9-How much do you plan to spend per shopping in Hong Kong?(HKG)

Clothes

15

Shoes

22

Cosmetic

13

Electronic products

10

Accessories

10

Total

70

Survey Question 10

Survey question 10 asked the participants about their intention to spend on shopping. The reason behind including this question was to explore the amount of money tourist usually tend to spend on shopping abroad. The results given at Table-10 reveal that tourists were willing to spend an amount between 1000-7000. Out of these which majority (27) stated that they will spend 2000-4000 on shopping?

Table 10-How much do you plan to spend per shopping in HongKong? (HKG)

20

2000-4000

27

5000-7000

23

8000-10000

0

Above 10000

0

Total

70

Survey Question 11

Survey question 11 asked the tourist whether the quality of service is important for them. The results of the study show that majority of tourist gave importance to the service quality of shopping malls. It is evident from the table 11 which show that 70% described that service quality of a shopping mall at HK is important for them

Table 11-Is it important to you for the shopping malls services quality?

Very Important

50

70%

Important

20

30%

Fair

0

Unimportant

0

Total

70

Survey Question 12

Table 12-Is it important to you for the shopping environment in the shopping malls?

Very Important

20

Important

20

Fair

10

Unimportant

20

Total

70

Survey Question 13

In this question the tourists at HK were asked whether the prices of products and goods are important for them or not. The results given at table 13 as well as chart given below show that majority of the tourists were concerned about the prices of the products. The results show that for 57% of the tourist, prices were very important while 42% considered prices important while shopping. There were no tourists to say that prices are not important.

The results are significant and consistent with the general attitude towards prices. As usually prices are important factor in shopping at different places. Also the tourists coming from different destinations compare prices and quality of the goods from that of their homelands and then decide to purchase a product.

Table 13-Is the price of the products in HK important to you?

Very Important

40

57%

Important

30

43%

Fair

0

Unimportant

0

Total

70

Survey Question 14

Table 14-When shopping in HK, does the traffic convenience?

Very convenience

35

Convenience

30

Fair

5

Inconvenience

0

Total

70

Survey Question 15

Table 15-Do you feel that HK has a satisfactory variety of brand for shopping?

Survey question 15 asked the participants whether variety of brands is available at shopping malls in Hong Kong. This was an important question to explore the perceptions and experiences of the tourist about shopping at Hong Kong. The results are not significant as majority of the tourists had no idea while there was equal number of respondents who described either as 'no' or 'yes'.

Yes

20

29%

No

20

29%

No Idea

30

42%

Total

70

Survey Question 16

Table 16 Will you come to shopping at Hong Kong again?-

Yes

20

29%

No

20

29%

No Idea

30

42%

Total

70

Conclusions

From the results of the study it is evident that Hong Kong is a good place of shopping as the majority of the tourists seemed to be satisfied with the prices, quality, environment and variety of goods available in the shopping mall at Hong Kong. The results of the study also show that majority of the men come to visit and do shopping at Hong Kong.

There were four variables to be analyzed in this study. 1) Quality of goods at HK 2) the variety of brands at HK 3) Shopping choices of tourists and 4) perception of Prices.

Regarding quality of services and goods, majority were satisfied with the quality of services at shopping malls.

As regards of brands majority was either not concerned or had no idea whether variety was satisfactory or not. While there were equal number of tourists who were satisfied or not satisfied. The results were biases and it cannot be concluded whether there are satisfactory variety of brands and products available according to tourists' expectations. This phenomenon needs to be explored further.

The third variable on which the researcher focused was tourists' views about the prices of goods at HK shopping malls. The data obtained against this question reveals that majority was concerned about the prices and they thought that prices are important while shopping at HK.

The fourth important variable that this study explored was the service quality at HK shopping malls and tourist experiences. The results of the study show that majority of tourist gave importance to the service quality of shopping malls. It is evident from the table 11 which show that 70% described that service quality of a shopping mall at HK is important for them.

1.