The Association of Tourists' Cultural Tendencies and Their Perceived Service Quality of a Chinese Travel Agency.

Several studies in tourism have shown that people from individualist cultures have different perceptions of service quality than those from collectivistic cultures. Triandis (1995) insists that attitudinal and behavioral differences also exist on an individual level within the same culture. He added the horizontal/vertical dimensions to the individualism/collectivism dimensions, thus four cultural tendencies occurs within a society: horizontal individualism/collectivism and vertical individualism/collectivism. This study examined the association between individuals' cultural tendencies and their perceptions of service quality of a Chinese travel agency within the same culture. A total of 346 participants of group tours were surveyed in 2004. Results of the canonical correlation analysis indicated that customers of the Chinese travel agencies were more horizontal than vertical and more collectivistic than individualistic. The horizontal individualistic/collectivistic tendencies had a positive correlation with all dimensions of the agency's service quality. Implications and limitations of the study were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]