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The study investigates the basic assumptions of how Hofstede's national culture measures are applied in tourism research. Findings support Hofstede's dimensions as a measure of central tendencies of visitors from different countries and reveal significant within-nation differences indicating the existence of subcultures.

This article investigates the impact of cultural and psychographic factors on perceptions of travel risk, anxiety, and intentions to travel internationally. The study involved 246 Australian and 336 foreign respondents who were surveyed as to their cultural orientation, personality, lifestyle, travel motivation, risk and safety perception, anxiety, and intentions to travel. The results of a path analysis showed that the travel risk perception was a function of cultural orientation and psychographic factors in both samples, and anxiety was a function of type of perceived risk. The terrorism and sociocultural risk emerged as the most significant predictors of travel anxiety. Intentions to travel internationally were determined by travel anxiety levels and level of perceived safety. Implications for future research and marketing practices are discussed. Keywords: travel risk; travel safety; anxiety

The objective of this study is to test the relationship between different dimensions of product categories, product attributes, and satisfaction with product attributes for Japanese tourists visiting Hawaii and the Gold Coast region of Australia. A survey of Japanese tourists arriving in Hawaii and the Gold Coast and Japanese tourists departing Hawaii and the Gold Coast was conducted in 1998. In the arrival survey, the importance of 15 product categories was determined along with the importance of 15 product attributes. In the departure survey, 17 elements of shopping satisfaction were collected. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the relationship that the importance of product purchased determines the importance of product attributes, and the importance of product attributes, in turn, determines satisfaction with product attributes. The conclusions are important for determining the best focus for retail tourism marketing aimed at increasing tourist shopping satisfaction.

This article presents the results of a structural equation modeling analysis used to determine which cultural differences between Asian tourists and Australian hosts are predictors of their social interaction and satisfaction. Five cultural models for Indonesian-, Japanese-, Korean-, Mandarin-, and Thai-speaking groups are developed. The findings show that marketers cannot directly rely on perceptions of service to generate Asian tourist satisfaction but must also consider cultural values and rules of social behavior. The implications of the results for tourism industry managers and marketers are presented. Part 1 of this study appeared in the February 2002 issue.

This article analyzes five language groups of Asian tourists to Australia: Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and Thai. The cultural differences between Asian tourists and Australian service providers are identified. The dimensions of the identified differences are determined by principal components analysis. The results indicate that in 73 (62.4%) of 117 areas of measurement, there are significant differences between Asian and Australian samples. The Japanese are the most distinct from the Australian sample, followed by the Korean sample. The implications of the results for tourism industry managers and marketers are discussed prior to the causal analysis of satisfaction presented in part 2, which shows that marketers cannot rely on perceptions of service alone to generate Asian tourist satisfaction but must also consider specific cultural values and rules of social behavior. Part 2 will appear in the May 2002 issue.

An exploratory study sought to examine service quality in Australian shops as perceived by Japanese tourists. It focused on eight areas of service quality, including the shop assistants' friendliness, helpfulness, information-giving, concern about customers and ability to speak Japanese. Results showed that Japanese tourists, in general, thought that Australian shop assistants provided good services. Differences between the tourists' expectations and perceptions in several service areas are discussed., Introduction Currently, the Japanese tourist market is the largest market generating international tourists to Australia, accounting for 24 per cent of all international visitors to Australia[1]. The Australian tourism industry [...]