This was one of my assignment when I did my master. I simply copy it here. I have a plan to rewrite this essay in a causal way.

Abstract

Comparing to other developed countries, the age of tourism in contemporary China is pretty short. It has experienced an earthshaking change in the latest 40 years. I would use a gaze of a tourist to observe how policies of government influence both tourism and my life from a macroscopic view; the transportation as the essential infrastructure for tourism changes my trip mode and travel experience, as more family owns private cars and with the rapid development of road, railroad, aviation; then I would illustrate the most essential push factor for Chinese tourists as well as me; my two solo travelling experiences are the most influential part of my travelling life, and I use them as examples to show why I travel, how I experience as a tourist; afterwards, combined my solo travel experience, I try to explain the relationship between social status, cultural capital and tourism; in the last part, I focus on the change of information exchange with the development and widespread of smartphone and social media.

Change of policy: the start of tourism in contemporary China

As I looked back to the time that before I was born, I would like to give a conclusion of the importance of how policy influenced me as a tourist. If there were no change in China’s policy, I would not have an opportunity to be a tourist as North Koreans. My father said when he was young, a letter of introduction from the office leader of my grandparents’ was required to stay in a hotel. Only business travelling existed, and it also needed to ask instructions from one’s superior with a complex process.

Tourism has been disappearing in Chinese history, and the change of policy on tourism is the start point of contemporary Chinese tourism. Airey and Chong (2011) divided Chinese tourism policy as five periods, 1949-1977, 1978-1975, 1978-1991,1992-1997,1997-present. There are several books in search of the how tourism development under policy and economy booming in China, such as  Zhang(2003, p.14) suggested: “Tourism in China would never have become what it is today without these historical policy changes”. Tourism was accepted as a market- and consumption-driven industry. (Airey & Chong, 2011, p.252) Besides, in the Central economic Works Conference convened in December 1998, tourism was confirmed as ‘a new growth of the national economy’. (CNTA,  1999 c:p.7) Rocket development in tourism with lagging governance makes domestic and also outbound tourism full of chaos which I will discuss in the later part of the paper.

Other two vital policies that stimulated Chinese tourism is the increase in Chinese legal vacations: 1)the government stipulated three traditional festivals as legal vacations in 2008 and 2)giving free passage to small passenger cars during 5 of legal holidays in China had gradually spread from Beijing to other provinces since 2012. Until 2016, the policy has become national. When I graduated from high school, our family almost go travelling in every vacation. Moreover, the policies stimulate people to travel on vacation but also lead to severe traffic congestion.

My family & my childhood & tourism

Tourism was trying to changing our lives. My parents chose a wedding trip rather than a grand wedding ceremony in 1993. Moreover, after two years when I was born, enlighted by some popular educational books for kids， my parents thought communing with nature would help me grow up healthier. So my parents took me for ecotourism almost every weekend, most of the time, climbing mountains. Recent research has proven that ecotourism will improve children’s understanding of interactions in nature, the formation of firm interest to the environment, children’s cognitive functioning. (Andrieieva et al.,2017) The experience of ecotour in my childhood does have a positive influence on me. When I grew up, I found more aware of the environment than my peers and love sports like tramping and climbing.

Change in transportation

The increase in private cars was a key factor in changing travel habit. (Humaphreys, 2016) . I could frequently travel in my childhood owing to my father who not only is an amateur tourist but also could afford at the 1990s. When I was one year old, my father bought his first car. We enjoyed the clear road for almost a decade.

When I was growing up, the number of tourists is booming; the number of private cars is booming; the milage of the road is increasing. The possession of private vehicles in China started booming in early 2000. (As shown in Figure 1)

Restricted by the road condition, the geographical range of the early stage (before 2006) of our family was no further than straight-line distance of 300km from Beijing. Beijing is the most important motorway hub in the country. Since the initial expressways were built from Beijing to other provinces and merely covered areas around Beijing, “A good number of the paved road are of poor quality” (Mak, 2003, p.179) prevented us from going further. It was our limit to go for a trip across three provinces. However today, we could drive to the north border of China, and also drive to the most southern province without hesitation.

Major construction of expressways begins in 1998, and the total mileage of expressway in China reached 25,480 miles in 2006. (MacLeod, 2006) The Rivalry between the increase in mileage of road and the growth of private car depends on the situation of road congestion. The increase in private car wins the game most of the time. Moreover, with the “help” of toll-free policy the traffic jam around the nation in vacation is so severe that people could get out of their car, have a picnic and play pards on the highway.

Self-driving has always been the main trip mode of my family, also because of the imperfection the railroad and civil aviation.

The Chinese high-speed rail (HSR) was open to traffic in 2008. Although, it makes it possible for a long distance trip with a relatively short time, the related services have no improvement at all. The arrogant manner of the train crew and expensive but disgusted food provided on the train keep me away. Until now, the railroad is still a state-operated industry. There is no competitive mechanism. As for civil aviation, China is the country with the highest aircraft delay rate. (Bergman, 2016) Last time, I went to Nanning by flight. My first flight was late for 2 hours, and I almost missed my next flight. Take domestic flight will make me crazy.

A push factor for Chinese tourists: Hectic and stressful life

From my perspective, the most critical push factor of Chinese tourists is to escape a hectic and stressful life. The effect-recovery theory (Meijman and Mulder, 1998) and the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1998) suggest that taking a leisure trip provides opportunities for relaxation, detachment from work, mastery experience, and personal control. (as cited in Chen, Petrick & Shahvali, 2016)

The frequent travel had gradually reduced since I entered the 4th grade of primary school. Like many Chinese kids in China, I was under heavy pressure of school. Although compared with lots of kids who started their hard-working life from kindergarten, my endeavour was lagging. The weekends of us were occupied by homework and all kinds of extra-curricular classes (including cram classes and interest-oriented lessons). I had a piano class since I was 7, and I had cram lessons both in English math which took a whole day of me at the weekend.

Not only the students in China under high pressure, but most social workers also live under high pressure. “996”, which means people have to work from 9 am to 9 pm and work six days a week, is a common mode of working in major cities, especially in IT and internet company in Beijing and Shanghai. My father’s company even stipulated the minimum extra hours of hours in 2017. So, both my father and I had little time in travelling, before I graduated from high school. Our family travel in almost every legal vacations.

Those kinds of pressure, in turn, became a push factor for the Chinese with high-pressure and hectic life desire a relaxing trip. When I was a high school student, I had a fantasy of travel. At that time, my dreaming travel destination is the Kingdom of Bhutan, India, and the western Sichuan, China. I hope a place with religion and pure belief could free myself from the bitterness of study.

Me as a solo traveller

The literature indicates that solo travel is among the fastest-growing tourism segments, driven by shifts in social structures as well as lifestyles (Mehmetoglu et al., 2001; Jordan & Gibson, 2005; Newman, 2010, as cited in Bianchi, 2016). However, in China, solo female travellers, especially underage girls, belong to a very small minority. When talking about woman’s solo travel, safety issues might be the first things to be considered. Douglas and Barrett(2016) tried to find the 50 articles and blogs by Google about “women’s solo travel”. Most of them focused on issues of rape, harassment, excessive drinking, and danger at night. 

As I was born in the age of one-child policy, seldom of my peers have tried to travel alone, because their parents will be crazy if they lose their only child. There are quite a lot of reports about the tragedies of young girls.

The first time I travelled alone was in 16 years old. I born with a lack of sense of fear. I was interested in history, so I decided to visit the most famous historical city in China after I said goodbye to my class in the last stop of the group tour which was organized by my head teacher. My father was almost mad when he heard I wanted to go to Xi’an by myself. My father finally allowed my journey by grandfather’s reassurance and promise to contact his acquaintances in Xi’an taking care of me.

Another trip was travel after I graduated from high school. At first, I hoped to organise a senior trip and invited lots of my classmates. However, most of them didn’t come, because of their parents’ security concerns.

Only two of them chose to follow me, and we divided our work on the trip into 3 parts. One, which is my job, was to design the routes and book the hotel; another was to find the restaurant which was not an easy job, as Chengdu is the paradise of food; the last one was to keep accounts. Everything ran smoothly during the trip to Chengdu. It is a dream resort for relaxing after heavy pressure of study for three years or longer. (as I mentioned before, some Chinese kids spend the majority of their free time studying all kinds of things since kindergarten.) However, when we finished playing Chengdu and around, I decided to move to the next city. One of the girls had to go back home to celebrate his father’s birthday and the other also want to go back as she thought the trip was too long.

Then my longest solo trip started afterwards. I took the Chinese high-speed rail through one of the most dangerous mountain areas in history by less than 2 hours to Chongqing. There is a favourite poem from Li Bai, the number one poet in China, who described the road in Sichuan as “The daunting route into the region of Shu is more daunting than climbing the sky.” Again, my father was anxious about my security. As Chongqing is the city where my grandfather grew up, he called his sister to look after me and asked me to find his childhood memory by taking photos. I was amazed when I walked around Chongqing which has an absolutely different topography of every city I have ever been to. The city is multi-layer, and itself is like a vast labyrinth.  For example, you might find an elevator where shows you are on the 10^th floor and the ground floor and the top floor would lead to another two streets. At that moment, I have no mobile aviation, but only a paper map. As I travel alone in a city, I walk all the time. it was much interesting to gaze a city on foot and with a map rather than by driving a car and only visit those famous scenic spots.

Then, I took a loose pulley drifting alone the Three Gorges of the Yangzi River from Chongqing. I spend three days and two night at the loose pulley and every time we drove pass spectacular scenery, there would have a radio to notice everyone to go to the deck. And the knowledgable tour guide will introduce the myth of the river and gorge and also his own experience to explain how three Gorges changed in the past 20 years. The guide had a walking trip among the Three Gorges of the Yangzi River for 3 months and visited many indigenous people who had lived in that area for hundreds of years but had to move their motherland because of the foundation of Three Gorges Dam. it was the first time I knew, how splendid could a tour guide be. Not as my previous stereotype of tour guides who only repeats the content from tour guide books, he was trying to guide us to be ethical tourists.

Solo travelling is my favourite form, in spite of  some constraints suggested in the study of Bianch (2016) like the extra cost for single accommodation/packages, dining alone, lack of entertainment for one and the risk and effort required for travelling alone.

The push factor for me might be related to internal feelings of freedom, but not escape and bravery. Those three factors are found to be the strongest motivators for solo holiday travellers, particularly female travellers (Dann, 1977; Uysal & Hagan, 1993, cited in Bianch, 2016). Solo travelling alone could provide me with a gaze of a place without the interruption of my accompanies, for I could be true myself, not myself in my acquaintances’ eyes. Some studies show the women who travel solo desire to challenge themselves, look for escape and feel autonomous (Jordan & Gibson, 2005; Wilson & Little, 2005, 2008, cited in Bianch, 2016). I never feel of any challenge when I am travelling alone. However it is a challenge for my father.

Tourists behaviour related to cultural capital and social status

Sometimes, I think my previous sole travel experiences are cultural capital, for seldom girls have such try of my age. Once, I climbed to the Victoria Peak in Kong Hong by an unpaved road where almost no non-local tourists have ever tried such a method. When I on that road, there are not many tourists on the way like elsewhere in Kong Hong, but only a few western people. I was quite proud of this experience. However, when I talked such experience to my friends, their first reflection was not what I expected like admiring or interested, but thought what I have done was too dangerous, and couldn’t understand why I had chosen such kind of behaviours. Adventure tour, as a cultural capital, is still subcultural for minority people in China.

In contrast, travel experiences for Chinese people are regarded as something presenting their social status. In China, a long trip, especially in high price-level countries like north European shows a person’s status. Because an ordinary salaryman could neither have such long vacation nor afford such cost on the journey. The photos posted in social media prove one has plenty of time and money for outbound trips. Chinese people leave the western tourists an incomprehensible impression that they are crazy about taking photos, even with a plain background. That is one of the reason. Although my father does not post any travelling pictures on social media, he would like to show off his experience in America to his friends in chat.

Information exchange

Before I was born, if my parents want to go somewhere, they had to ask indigenous friends and relatives to look after them before travelling to a place, because it was difficult to search information or book a hotel at that time. In the early 2000s, they could get tour information more easily. There were more and more travel books on the market. Besides, with the internet and personal computer spreading in the urban area of first-tier cities in China, travel forums, and travel blogs sprang up in China. Lvye, the first and also the largest outdoor activities forum found in 1999 where gathers lots of travel enthusiasts. My father designed his travel route mainly by referencing travelling guideline from travel forum like Lvye.

The prevalence of the smartphone completely changed our behaviour as tourists. Tussyadiah(2016) concluded that smartphone trip has a significant positive impact on management or organisation, push recommendations, searching for online reviews, searching for deals and discounts, and social networking, but not navigation. In my opinion, the navigation function of the mobile is largely changed the tourists’ behaviours of our family. Before our mobile has functions like map aviation, accessing the internet, a paper adventure travel map and a compass were necessities for travelling. When travelling, sitting in the front passenger seat I was in charge of navigating for my father by the help of a paper map, a compass and road sign. Moreover, It was normal to get off the car to ask the directions.

In recent years, we no longer buy a paper map, for the map app could almost replace all their function and is even more convenient. As the combination of the map with aviation and some travel forum, I can access restaurant reviews, accommodation bookings and other travel-related content.

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Nowadays, social media is the primary information source for my parents. Just like most of the Chinese tourist’s behaviours on social media, (As shown in Figure 2 Chinese Tourist’s Behavior on Social Media) they use social tourist’s social networking to collect information and look up tourist’s reviews, use an online travel agency to book tickets and hotel before and during travelling. however, they seldom give reflection after travelling, for example, write a review for a hotel on booking.com.

However, information from a guide book or from social media could hardly shorten the mental distance between tourists and a destination. In contrast, art, literature seems to have magic glamour. When I read the poems wrote a thousand years ago which describes the beauty of Hangzhou, the daunting route of Shu, a fantasy of the place forms in my mind. The positive expression of the destination improves my satisfaction in travelling, just like my travelling experience in Xi’an and Chengdu. Correia, Kozak& Ferradeira(2013) demonstrate that satisfaction arose within the opportunity to experience the cultural and social specificities of a destination.

Our behaviours become lazier and lazier with the convenience of mobile. Sometimes, we do no previous work at all for domestic travels. When looking at an attraction signal on the highway, my father asks me to search the reviews of it to see whether it deserve a visit.  However, after several travels like these, I just lost the excitement of exploring a place. So, I decided to give up social media, and do more homework about a destination.

For the following outbound trip, although I couldn’t know their culture and history as much as my country, I tried to get a more holistic view. I choose lonely planet as my main information resource about travel, as I trust its authentic, and it provides me with almost every information about an area, from maps, detail information of attraction, transportation, accommodation and even its cultural background and history. I would not spend lots of time to gather oceans of fragmentary information. I only use mobile apps to book hotels, tickets and for aviation.

Conclusion

It is challenging to put self as an observation object. Owing to our physiological structure, we are excluded by the observation angle. We can only saw ourselves by other media, for example, others’ eyes and experience the change of ourselves by memory.

In this paper, I continuously enquired my father about the change of how our travelling habit changed and tried to figure out their influencing factors. And I also take the angle of the previous study of how to observe tourists to analysis my intention, behaviour, satisfaction. The whole process of antinomic is and trivial.

The policy change of China is doubtless the most important point of all. It created conditions for the development of tourism in China. then it is the family who raised me. my parents had the intention to take me out to see the world and feeling the nature, and they also had the economic condition to support the frequent travelling. Because of the heavy pressure in the study, the travel habit of my family once almost paused when I was in middle school. My solo travelling experience made me become an active tourist rather than a passive passenger. The last part, I analyse how factors like cultural capital and social status represent in tourism and the information exchange when travelling. Through an observation on me as a tourist, a clearer cognition and understanding of tourism forms.

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