1. Introduction
Recently, the cruise industry worldwide has been growing rapidly, and the number of cruise travelers has also been increasing steadily [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5]. To be specific, the annual number of cruise tourists increased from 20.9 million in 2012 to 24 million in 2015 worldwide [
6]. Of the cruise tourists, Chinese cruise tourists account for a large portion in the cruise market, and their number is continuously increasing [
3,
7]. According to the Korean Maritime Institute [
8], a think tank developing Korean policies on marine affairs, Chinese cruise tourists also accounted for 92% of inbound cruise travelers to Korea. In particular, Chinese companies such as Shinhwa Life Insurance, Baojian, a company that produces and sells skin-beauty products and daily necessities, and Amway, a multi-level marketing company that sells health, beauty, and home care products, provided cruise tours to Korea to their well-performing employees in the name of incentive tours, with an estimated (4000 to 12,000) tourists visiting Korea on such incentive cruise tours [
9]. Incentive tours are generally paid for in full by a company, and the amount of individuals’ spending is larger than for ordinary forms of tourism, so in turn the mass consumption brings a large economic ripple effect [
10]. That is, Korea’s cruise industry relies heavily on the Chinese market and shows a huge influence from Chinese tourists. Therefore, the Korean cruise industry is trying hard to attract more Chinese incentive tourists [
11].
However, in 2017, China imposed a ban on group tours to Korea in response to terminal high-altitude area defense (THAAD) development. The Chinese government also banned cruise tours to Korea, which had a huge impact on the entire Korean cruise tourism industry [
12]. Fortunately, the number of Chinese group tourists is on the rise again as of 2019, because of the creation of a political reconciliatory mood between Korea and China [
13]. As evidence of this mood, the Chinese travel agency Yingke Tourism has resumed sales of cruise tour packages to Incheon, Korea [
14]. The improvement in this situation is likely to serve as a boon for the Korean cruise industry, which has relied heavily on the Chinese market.
Culture and tourism behavior have a close relationship. In other words, individual tourist preferences or behaviors are formed differently, based on idiosyncratic cultural backgrounds [
15,
16]. Similar phenomena are shown in the cruise tourism domain. For example, Mondou and Taunay [
3] mentioned that cultural differences between Western and Eastern cultures have resulted in dissimilar preferred tourism contents or patterns among cruise tourists. Even though Chinese tourists have an enormous global market share, academic cruise research has so far centered on the study of tourists belonging to Western culture. In other words, there is a lack of systematic study of cruise-tour attributes reflecting the cultural characteristics of the Chinese, who are a major demander worldwide. In the end, this leads to a lack of understanding of Chinese cruise tourists, which in turn means that inadequate cruise products will be provided [
17,
18].
Therefore, it is necessary to look systematically at the cruise-tourism attributes favored by Chinese cruise tourist groups. In order to achieve this goal, a choice experiment (CE) is employed in this study. CE is a representative method to measure the degree of preference for each attribute by employing maximization utility theory [
19]. One advantage of CE is that the size of the utility of attributes can be measured by converting the utility to a monetary value, which is called marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) [
20]. Given the market share of cruise tourism in Korea and the methodological advantages of CE, the purpose of the study is to estimate the preferences of potential Chinese tourists heading to Korea by applying CE.
5. Discussion
Michael Thamm, the CEO of the world’s leading cruise company, ‘Costa’, maintains that Chinese cruise tourism should be seen as a promising market [
51]. In Korea, the cruise market is also growing—Chinese cruise tourists visiting the country accounted for about 92 percent of all cruise tourists by 2016 [
52]. In particular, numerous Chinese companies offer large-scale cruise tours to Korea as incentives for employees. The companies pay for employees’ cruise trips, so incentive tourists tend to spend relatively more than ordinary tourists, which has a huge economic impact on tourist attractions [
28].
The research on cruise tourists has focused mainly on Western tourists; however, research to understand the Chinese market, which is a big part of the demand for global cruise markets, has not been enough [
17,
18]. Some studies have argued that the cultural differences between Chinese and Western tourists would cause idiosyncrasies in preferences for cruise attributes, such as activities or programs [
3,
29]. Thus, a systematic study of cruise tourism preferences for Chinese tourists reflecting the cultural characteristics is needed. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to systematically understand the preferences for cruise tour product attributes through a CE for potential Chinese incentive cruise tourists.
Through literature review of prior studies and expert interviews, the following six cruise tour attributes and their corresponding levels were chosen for the study. Room type (inside, ocean view, and suite room), programs (onboard entertainment activities, onboard entertainment activities plus sport and fitness programs, and onboard entertainment activities plus sport and fitness programs plus spa and massage programs), variety of shopping items (less, moderate, and lots), percentage of traditional Chinese food served of (33, 66, and 100) %, and price of CNY (4777, 6825, 8873). A total of 729 (36) cruise products could possibly be combined based on the number of attributes and levels. However, it is physically impossible to identify respondents’ preferences for all combinations. Therefore, data were gathered by the minimum representative combinations through a fractional-factorial design, which enabled the researchers to statistically verify attributes, even without using all combinations. The collected data were statistically analyzed by the multinomial logit analysis. Five attributes, including room type, programs, variety of shopping items, tour packages in ports of call, percentage of traditional Chinese food served, and price, were statistically significant, except for programs. This result indicates that a one-unit increase of room type, variety of shopping items, tour packages in ports of call, and percentage of traditional Chinese food changes would increase the likelihood of choosing the products.
For the MWTPs, how much individuals were willing to pay as a given attribute’s condition increased, and the variety of shopping items had the highest value among the five attributes in this study. In other words, respondents are more likely to place the highest value on the diversity of shopping offered on cruise ships. This conclusion is externally validated by previous studies. According to a survey of foreign cruise tourists released by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) in 2013, 87.4% of Chinese tourists shopped at cruise duty-free shops, whereas less than 10% of tourists from the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand participated in duty-free shopping [
51]. Chinese tourists preferred to purchase luxury brand products in duty-free shopping, more so than did other cultural tourists [
3,
32,
33]. Therefore, given the report published by the public sector and the validity of the study, it is important to build various duty-free shops on cruise ships to satisfy Chinese tourists on cruise tours. Therefore, it can be concluded that Chinese cruise tourists prefer to have luxurious experience by shopping offered on cruise ship.
Second, the type of room was also identified as an important attribute. A cabin is considered an important attribute for Chinese tourists, as well as for overall cruise tourists, as shown by numerous prior studies of cruise tourism [
21,
25]. Since cruise tourists have to stay in a limited space, they prefer a cabin where they can see the ocean, or a suite with balconies and luxurious furniture, because, unlike ordinary trips, cruise tourists are more likely to want a luxurious and unique experience while participating in a tourism cruise [
52,
53,
54,
55].
Given the size of MWTPs, the proportion of traditional Chinese meals served on board is preferred. This is a conclusion similar to those from earlier studies. For example, Chang, Kivela, and Mak’s study [
45] found that while traveling abroad, the Chinese prefer to eat something that is routine and friendly. In addition, during cruise tours, Chinese tend to prefer Chinese local cuisine to exotic foreign cuisine, whereas Western cruise tourists prefer to have a variety of international foreign cuisine while on a cruise [
17].
Finally, the port tour, which consists of tourist attractions, historical sites, and shopping, was also found to be a preferred attribute. Sun et al. [
25] also suggests that for the Chinese, sightseeing at a famous destination of a port is a typical motivation for cruise tourism. At the same time, the Chinese think it is important to broaden their horizons by visiting new historical and cultural sites [
30]. In this regard, Chinese tourists find it important to gain new knowledge by visiting major destinations through cruise tours. Therefore, various port-tour programs will have to be prepared to satisfy the preferences of Chinese cruise tourists.
In contrast, the results indicated that programs, such as shows, casinos, sports, or spas, are relatively less preferable attributes. This finding is similar to the results of Chen, Neuts, Nijkamp, and Liu [
56]. They examined the determinants of cruise demand according to motivation, preference and intention and indicated that Chinese placed the lowest value on sports facilities such as running track, golf, climbing walls and so on. In addition, based on the cruise schedule suggested by Princess Cruise [
57], cruise tourists spend 24 hours on the sea from Shanghai in China to Busan and Jeju in Korea. This is a relatively shorter time period than cruises to California or Hawaii, which spend more than 48 hours at sea. In this regard, cruise tours to Korea offer a relatively short time period to participate in various programs on board, which is reflected in the study results. Therefore, Chinese cruise tourists will tend to focus on shopping and port tours, rather than on securing diversity in shipboard programs.
6. Implication
This study presents the following practical implications. First, it is necessary to organize diverse duty-free shopping items on the ship. In other words, considering the characteristics of Chinese tourists’ preference for shopping activities during cruise tours, service providers need to identify and prepare their preferred brands and items. Second, for accommodation, a method for increasing the percentage of ocean views or suites should be considered in the ship design stage, or an attractive pricing policy should be implemented to prevent dissatisfaction of the inside room guest. Additionally, for Chinese tourists, whose degree of avoidance of uncertainty seems to be large, Chinese-style meals should be served more often. For example, a service provider will likely have to focus on the Chinese tourists’ favorite items, including drinks, desserts, and snacks, as well as main foods. Finally, considering Chinese cruise tourists’ preference for port tours, visits to various types of tourist attractions will have to be included in the port tours. Furthermore, the satisfaction of Chinese cruise tourists will be increased by not only providing Chinese-speaking guides to explain landmarks and historical sites, but also providing pick-up and drop-off services to conveniently move tourists from ship to destinations. Furthermore, guaranteeing adequate time for attractions would be necessary as well.
Additionally, the results of the study will help to the sustainable development of the cruise tourism industry as mentioned in several prior studies [
58,
59,
60]. The literature stated that a strategic approach is required for continuous sales of cruise tourism such as discounting price or provision of higher service quality (from the perspective of service providers). Additionally, efforts to establish a regional absorption system of economic benefits from cruise tourism or minimize environmental damages are necessary for sustainable development of the cruise industry [
58,
61].
Given this argument, this study could guide the Korean cruise industry regarding Chinese tourists to achieve sustainable development. In other words, the degree of importance of preference attributes would be identified based on the study results, which would contribute to the efficient operation of cruise companies. Furthermore, this would eventually lead to a contribution to the sustainability of the cruise industry. For academic implications, the following points can be suggested. First, this study is meaningful in that the study results help one to understand the preferred attributes for Chinese cruise tourists, who are a major consumer of the cruise market around the world. Second, the application of CE, a specialized research method that identifies the preferences of the subjects, could be considered to be a methodological contribution of the study.
However, the present study has some limitations. Theoretically, CE includes some unrealistic assumptions about the choice mechanism of respondents, which are called the irrelevant-alternatives properties (IIA) [
49]. Therefore, an advanced econometric model, such as mixed-logit, which theoretically mitigates the IIA assumption, would be recommended for further studies.