Travel and the Chinese outbound tourism market: Governance and Ethical considerations

Abstract

The rapid growth of China’s outbound tourism market is appealing to developing nations such as South Africa. The academic literature is still limited in this area and studies on China’s outbound tourism are equally limited in number and in scope. Chinese outbound tourism is fixated on group travel for both long- and short-haul outbound travel. Chinese travellers tend to select the perceived safety and convenience of packaged tours from China and the presumed expertise of the travel agents with whom they conduct business. However, it is often the case that tourists are disillusioned with their ultimate travel experiences as many fall victims to unscrupulous operators, travel agents and guides in China, and other stakeholders who exploit them. China is striving towards and can and should become a promoter of ethics in business as it is rapidly emerging as an economic dynamo. Thus, the ethical rules which the Chinese assimilate into their business’ practices will and do have a global influence. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the current knowledge in the area of Chinese governance, and business ethics as it relates to the travel business and especially to outbound tourism, and to provide some directions for future research in this area. To achieve the objective, the paper has been structured as follows. It first briefly looks at Chinese tourism to South Africa and its value given its Approved Destination Status (ADS). This is followed by briefly looking at some problematic areas in tourism. Following this, governance in China is investigated with the aim of attempting to determine desired Chinese operational practices based on Confucianism and CSR. This is followed by an assessment of Guanxi in present day China. Lastly, the researchers’ provide suggestions for future research and discuss the implications of the work to travel practitioners.