Sichuan Province Earthquake Effects On Tourism Tourism Essay

Sichuan Province Earthquake Effects On touristry touristry EssaySichuan state of matter is located in the Sichuans plateau in the inland of Southwest China it is commonly referred to as the land of abundance. It has an enormous territory and rich in resources and is unrivaled of the most ethnically diverse argonas in China. This province has several historic and cultural sites and other infixed and manmade tourist attraction sites. The attraction sites and the famous Sichuan cuisine normally characterized by hot flavor, and incomparable beauty make the province a wonderland that attracts millions of tourists from all over the world. Sichuan is also a study industrial portion in China the province has both heavy and light industries. Plans were underway of developing this region into a high tech industrial centre.A monolithic temblor, the famous Wenchuan Earthquake with a order of 8.0 on the Richter scale, hit western Sichuan, China in 2008. According to official figures, re leased 65,185 people were confirmed dead. Over 68,636 of them were from Sichuan province, roughly 374,171 of others were reported injured and scores of others missing. Millions of people were left homeless and a lot of private and public property destroyed, the economic loss incurred was approximated to be over 1,000 billion. The earthquake extremely affected all economic sectors in the quake-hit atomic number 18as and tourism was no exception. Study of the impacts of the quake on tourism enhances the hypothesis of tourism and more than prodigiously serving as the basis for planning and policymaking.Problem statementThe earthquake is believed to adjudge killed 54 tourists in Sichuan province. During the period, over ten thousand tourists were detached and over 30 flights and 300 vehicles used to evacuate them. The tourist industry lost over $ 7.24 billion in the earthquake. With regard to the contri unlession of tourism to the regions economy, on that point flip been major reconstruction efforts after the earthquake. Destructive catastrophes, such as the Boxing Day tsunami in the Indian Ocean (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), the Wenchuan Earthquake (2008), the Samoan tsunami (2009), and the Haiti earthquake (2010) have lately put the limelight on inseparable disasters, with real time TV footage screening the eveningts as they unfold. International media issue warnings to tourists to stay away, tour local economies experience immediate and widespread impacts from the loss of tourism earnings, and endure many months of uncertainty before a return to anything resembling normal billet operation.Tourism coatings are highly sensitive to interruption by natural disasters because tourism operations are reliant on functioning critical infrastructure, including electricity, sewage, communications and pee lifelines which are inevitably defiled and disrupted for a prolonged period following a damaging event (Ritchie 2009). Flow-on effects from disasters also include significant disruption to the supply and distribution chains of even the most prepared businesses (Lee Harrald 1999). Economic losses are attributable to a decline in damage to infrastructure (Laws et al. 2007). The interdependencies of the tourism industry have been one of its great strengths, allowing it to rapidly expand and diversify. However, natural disasters can produce immediate, cascading failures within the tourism sector that have the ability to reverberate within communities and countries for many months and years. This study highlights physical and social impacts of large magnitude earthquakes.According to Sichuans local media, reconstruction in the Sichuan tourism sector has been separated into three levels. The initial stage was trying to attract the domesticated tourists to the quake hit areas, followed by foc use on local tourism enterprises to make global tourism market. Finally reviving the entire tourism sector by or after the year 2010 and make i t the leading sector in the region. This earthquake affected the probable tourists sciences on the Sichuan tourism many still feel that the destination is not safe enough to visit. The Sichuans tourism agency has to excrete a considerable figure to convince the potential tourists that the place is safe to travel and that the attractions are still as appealing as they were before the quake.Objectives of the enquiry StudyThe main objective of this study is to investigate the potential tourists perceptions towards the Sichuan tourism after the earthquake. This study has not been carried out there giving rise to the cognition gap that needs to be filled. The findings from this research leave alone fill this knowledge gap and add to the current literature. Findings from this study provide also be precise significant in identifying the determinants that can be changed to design the best strategies in order to attract more tourists and satisfy their needs. The Sichuan tourism indust ry is expected to remediate helpers and develop strategies to attract potential tourists and make them feel comfortable in Sichuan. Specifically the objective of this study is to help understand the potential tourists perception towards the post-earthquake Sichuan tourism, and determine what factors are considered significant by the potential tourists wanting to travel to Sichuan.Conceptual frameworkScott, N. Laws, E. (2005). Tourism crises and disasters Enhancing understanding of system effects. Journal of Travel Tourism Marketing, vol. 19, (3), pp. 151-160.The conceptual framework above articulates a set of complete values for disaster management strategies, to the benefit of tourism businesses and destination bureaus. This model follows a elongated crisis procedure that is pre-event, emergency, intermediate, recovery and resolution. It goes further to win insights for success in full assisting the tourism industry and the government in putting up disaster management strateg ies. Strategic murder comprise of disaster communication and control, stakeholder collaboration and resource management. The tourism industry should learn from experiences such as the Sichuan earthquake. The work of emergency organizations as well as tourism organizations become very crucial, while that of tourism enterprises is usually less critical during pre- or post crisis periods.LITERATURE REVIEW2.1. Historical background of problem areaTourism in the area accounted for 8% of county gross domestic product prior to the earthquake (Lim, 2009). The earthquake cost Sichuan province US$7 billion in lost tourism revenue (Zhiling Xianyu 2009). In contrast to the consequences of the Chi-Chi earthquake, tourism to the area rebounded in less than a year as domestic visitors flocked to see areas devastated by the quake (Lim, 2009). Government investment in the tourism industry in the region hopes to cash-in on the earthquake tourism phenomenon, with work soon taking place on the cons truction of a number of earthquake museums in the province, and a quake-relief training centre in Beichuan (Zhiling Xianyu 2008 Lim 2009). Local officials hope to ontogenesis tourism earnings to as much as 20% of regional GDP. One local Beichuan man describes his feelings about the earthquake the earthquake was a catastrophe, but it will be good for the tourist industry (Lim 2009). The travel motivations of domestic Chinese tourists include observing the power of nature, to pay their respects to the dead, and to be reminded of the vice of life (Liu 2009). According to various online news reports, as many as 19 million tourists visited Sichuan province during the National Day celebrations this year (Global Times 2009). The business of earthquake tourism, it seems, is booming in devastated parts of the epicentral region.Tourism disaster managementTourism is a deliberate and peacetime activity, is very susceptible to disparities caused by external environments that may compromise t he tourist experience (Santana, 2003). Given that perception is reality in the tourism industry, a negative image results from a catastrophe of any kind, even if inexcusable, and will hinder potential tourists and lead to negative buying behavior. Globalization exposes the tourism industry to greater political, economic, social, and technological changes (Ritchie, 2004). Meanwhile, the butterfly effect further magnifies small crises in one part of the world to other parts. Examples can be found among previous events, regardless of type, such as the Wenchuan Earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 on the Richter scale, hit western Sichuan, China in 2008, and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (Santana, 2003). The negative impact of crises on the tourism industry is more significant among destinations that are highly reliant on tourism as their major source of revenue.The world has become increasingly catastrophe prone (Coombs, 1999 Richardson, 1994) and all the economic sectors are on the edg e of chaos, Fink argues (1986), Researchers have provided many definitions for crisis. Faulkner (2001) contended that crises are induced by internal factors, or actions or inactions of the organizations, whereas disasters are by external forces, comprising of natural phenomena. Stafford, Yu, and Armoo (2002) further classified external factors into physical, social, and human environment. According to them natural disasters like those that earthquakes and technological failures are affiliated with crises in the former situation, and confrontations, epidemics and war are ally with crises in the latter situation.Foreign visitors atonementHartman developed a customer satisfaction concept in 1993 that consists of three constructs the cognitive, affective, and systemic (Hartman, 1993). Customer satisfaction is define by customers post-purchase assessment of service delivered and comparison of customers expectations and the actual service experience (Hunt 2007).This concept was further refined as the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm by Oliver (2000), with four elements pre-purchase expectations, sensed performance, disconfirmation and satisfaction. Several approaches to performance analysis in tourism satisfaction such as expectation-performance, importance-performance, disconfirmation approach, and performance-only approach have been used. In terms of travel, Moutinho (1997) notes that this post-purchase construct is primarily a function of pre-travel expectations and travel experiences.Similarly, Pizam, Neumann, and Reichel (1998) define tourist satisfaction as the results of the comparison between a tourists experience at the destination visited and the expectations about the destination. Tourism researches have been interested in measuring the overall levels of tourism satisfaction with their experiences in particular destinations as well as satisfaction with specific attributes at service encounter level such as in a hotel or at an attraction. Foster (20 00) while another focus in studying tourism satisfaction is to determine satisfaction with a series of service encounters as experienced in a hotel, in a travel agency or in a tourist attraction (Macintos, 2002). Research interests in methodologies for studying tourism satisfaction have been comprehensive summarized by Kozak (2001).Tourism satisfaction with a destination has been examined as a gap analysis between pre-travel expectations and post travel experiences (Schofield, 1999).Based on the cumulative nature of tourists experiences, Scott, Tian, Wang, and Munson (2005) developed a tourism satisfaction model. Bowen and Clarke (2002) articulated a context Tourism satisfaction level can be attributed to different destination attributes including tangible produces and prices to intangible service quality and the favor of the local people (Ryan,1999). The deliveries of good core services alone cannot guarantee customer satisfaction, and overall satisfaction and repurchase intention are differentially bringd by the various service encounters experienced in a chain of service activities (John Tim 2000).Durocher (1994) argued that the speed of recovery depends on three factors the extent of damage caused by the natural disaster, the efficiency with which tourism partners bring their facilities back online, and an effective marketing message that clearly states that the destination is available to the public (Durocher). Although the first two factors concern the short immediate response, the third involves a long-term continuous process that aims to restore consumer agency. Conventional approaches to crisis management implicitly assume that the primary goal is to restore the precrisis counterpoise level. However, Faulkner and Vikulov (2001) argued that because of the lingering effect of a disaster, trying to achieve the precrisis equilibrium level could be a redundant (or suboptimal) approach with regard to long-term sustainability. The chaos created by a cri sis can therefore lead to a creative process with potential for new configurations (Faulkner Vikulov 2001). In other words, the crisis can be an opportunity for innovation, with the entranceway of new marketing campaigns and development of new products through cooperation with industry partners. These new products and marketing plans should be tailor-made to attract identified key generating markets, because resources are unendingly limited during hard times.Another important strategy is to nurture a healthy and positive relationship with the major media. From the long-term perspective, the restoration of customer confidence is the focus of post disaster recovery, and this can only be done by building a positive image of the destination (Santana, 2003). By inviting major media to visit the area affected, not only the availability of the destination is demonstrated but also the elimination of travel barriers for potential tourists.Although often associated with enjoyment, pleasure , relaxation, and safety, tourism is by nature an industry susceptible to variations in the external environment, including crises and disasters (Santana, 2003.). In times of unpredictable events, government plays an essential role in the response and recovery stages essential to minimize damage and bring life back to normal (Peterson, 1995). The reaction of government agencies and the tourism industry is a critical topic in tourism crisis management that has not yet been fully addressed (Faulkner,2001). This study represents one of the first set abouts to fill this research gap by examining the post earthquake tourists perceptions of Sichuan tourism. methodologyThe study will be a qualitative research, as the qualitative methods will be more appropriate in understanding meanings and experiences relevant to the research. numerical methods might however be used if the need arises. Qualitative methods have however, been criticized for not having the scientific firmness. Some resea rch workers have gone further in an attempt to provide systematic approaches to assess its quality. McInnins-Dittrich (1996), for example, identified several dimensions along with which the reliability of quality studies can be assessed transferability, dependability, credibility, authenticity, and conformability. Guided by the above-mentioned principles, the research will recognize the importance of providing reliable, verifiable, and credible data.The research design will involve a mixed methods approach to help understand the potential tourists perception towards the post-earthquake Sichuan Tourism. To provide an in-depth interpretation of the aims, certain variables will be identified to ensure that all data is utilized successfully to reach the goals of this study, these variables include visitor characteristics, trip characteristics, satisfaction, factors that influence the visitors decision to visit a destination, and Sichuans tourism marketing image. These variables will be fundamentally developed from the examination of previous literature, and the needs for further research as expressed by Sichuan Tourism Administration. info collectionSecondary and primary data collection methods will be used in the research study. The supplemental methods to be employed will include literature review, and policy and legislative analysis. Primary methods will include focus group discussions stakeholder consultations, and focused interviews with key informants, interviews with potential tourists in different regions and surveying the attitudes and beliefs across various regions.SurveyConsidering the questions to be answered by this research, a comprehensive social cultural instrument will be developed. Perceptions, attitudes, and thought process questionnaire (PAOQ) will be informed by literature review and the social cultural factors that are relevant to the target regions. They will also be scientifically validated before administering them across a representativ e sample in each target region. Using a likert scale, the PAOQ will be a self-reporting assessment of perceptions, attitudes and the opinions of the potential tourists that will be designed for both domestic and international tourists from different regions. The questionnaire will contain several sections post earthquake perceptions, the attitudes to the Sichuan tourism, opinion on the required action to promote the tourist attractions. The researcher hopes to administer the questionnaires within group settings.Sampling method will be used for the PAOQ. The researcher aims to administer 500 questionnaires across the targeted regions. The questionnaires distribution will depend on the regions population with regions with the high population getting more questionnaires. The researcher also aims for 50-50 original of the males and females. The key variable will include sexual urge, education, socioeconomic status, age and rural/ urban.Data analysisThe researcher will then analyze the PAOQ data using the statistics package for social sciences version 16. The given variables will be analyzed and their contribution to the topic measured. Frequencies will be used to provide the statistics and graphical displays that will be useful in describing the variables to be measured. Cross tabulation, method will also be employed to measure the association of variables. To investigate the possible gender effects, ANOVAs test will be used and conducted between the men and the women on all dependent variables. Differences between the childhood sexual abuse group and the non- childhood sexual abuse group in interpersonal, social, and dynamic personality will be examined using a one-way ANOVA test. The researcher however has the designate to use any other data analysis technique depending on the kind of data that will be obtained from the fieldSummaryThis chapter has described the methodological approaches that will be used to investigate the main objectives of this study. Bot h objectives will predominantly use qualitative method but where need be the quantifiable methods will be employed. It also explains how data will be collected that is through primary and secondary methods. Further describes the researchers survey. Finally, the methods and tolls of data analysis are fully explained research findings and interpretation will be discussed in the next chapter.SECTION 5 BUDGETIn order to complete this research, certain amount of budget will be required and the estimate cost is as belowAMOUNT(AUD)ITEMSUSD 400.00Computer and Econometric Software1.USD 300.00Conference , accommodation and travel2.USD 600.00Data Collection , travelling cost ,Stationeries and data analysis3.USD 1300.00TOTALSECTION 6 TIMELINEMARC,2010-APRIL,2011MARC,2011-APRIL,2012MARC,2012-APRIL,2013QTR1QTR2QTR3QTR4QTR1QTR2QTR3QTR4QTR1QTR2QTR3QTR4Candidature ProposalLiterature Review figure 1* course 2*Phase3*Thesis Write Up Final Touch UPSubmissionPhase1* Data collectionPhase 2* Data Analys isPhase 3* Thesis Starts to Write up