Cruise Tourism for Sustainability: An Exploration of Value Chain in Shenzhen Shekou Port
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
Thank you for your efforts in order to improve your manuscript. Still, the section Discussions is placed after conclusions, but I believe is a minor editing error.
Good luck!
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: Thank you for your efforts in order to improve your manuscript. Still, the section Discussions is placed after conclusions, but I believe is a minor editing error.
Response 1: We are very grateful for the reviewer’s encourage. We have revised these parts according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
- Discussion
The paper is put forward under the background of the rapid development of cruise tourism in China and the promotion of cruise industry in Shenzhen. There are several possible explanations for some argues.
First, why choose cruise home port to study the development of cruise tourism? Cruise home port is the node of cruise industry chain, not only the carrier of cruise owners and gathering place of tourists, but also the important resource integrator of cruise economic system. SSP is located in the subtropical area, navigable all year round, its radiation potential consumers come from China's economically developed and active regions with promising future[15,17,18].
Second, why is based on value chain theory and depend on online text analysis and interview method? Nowadays cruise tourism is an emerging tourism business in China. Most Chinese tourists are experiencing cruise tourism for the first time, and their tourism motivation is to mainly get tourism experience. Based on “tourist source” and “procurement” of the value chain theory[25], we go deep into the minds of cruise tourists by data collection, analysis, together with face to face interviewing on board and off shore those who could not or would not write on line[54,55]. According to the research, as for Chinese tourists, senior citizens, kids and parents are two emerging markets. Meanwhile, enriching cruise entertainment facilities, improving service quality, attaching importance to the cultivation of leisure culture, and setting up duty-free shopping center are by any means necessary[7,8].
Third, what is the relationship between SSP cruise tourism development and sustainability? Shenzhen Ocean Development Planning (2013-2020) put forward the key point of the development of the Marine industry that cruise and related industrial facilities, including the construction of cruise home port service facilities, implementation of consumption strategy, expand cruise yacht upstream and downstream industry chain, speed up the cruise home port and the public service facilities construction, promote the cruise customs clearance facilitation. SSP is facing important development opportunities[12,14,21].
- Conclusions
Using ROST CM6 software to conduct social network analysis on the comments of cruise tourists, it is found that "cruise", "service", "itinerary" and "tour guide" are the core words, and relevant tourism activities are carried out around these four aspects, which are consistent with the statistical analysis results of high-frequency words. From the perspective of emotion analysis and the rating system of satisfaction, it further discusses the important elements who are cruise target tourists in Southern China and what they care most about in cruise value chain.
7.1. Chinese senior citizens market
The elderly are the main consumer group of Chinese cruise tourism which is popular with families from different generations. In high frequency word statistics, "elderly " and "children" of the word frequency sorting at 10th and 20th. From the interview, most elderly cruise visitors feel proud of their cruise trip, while some of them travel with their grandson or granddaughter, namely between the two generations for parents don't participate in. The elderly generally have enough money, leisure time, strong desire to take the cruise trips. The long-haul cruise will satisfy the need of the newly retired to see the outside world. Chinese grandparents, on the other hand, are so tired of taking care of their grandchildren that their children volunteer to help them relax by taking a cruise during the summer and winter holidays. Old people are willing to take advantage of the health of the time to take the cruise, enjoy the happiness of being served, more luxurious than usual travel life.
7.2. Marketing to kids and parents
Based on the above analysis, parent-child cruise culture needs to be constructed and strengthen. Aleksander(2019) concludes deeper understanding of children's cruise experience in the following phases: the pre-cruise decision and planning phase; the on-board engagement phase; the reinterpretation and evaluation phase [50]. The basic educational concept of the Chinese people is that the family gives priority to children, which is reflected in the investment of the family's money, time, and energy for the growth of children. Cruise is a way for children to travel with their parents, which meets the rigid demand of China's parent-child travel market. It not only helps children broaden their horizons, increase their ability, learn etiquette, acquire knowledge and make friends, but also is an important means to improve the relationship between parents and children, enhance family cohesion and plan their children's future. Children and parents participate in the planning and decision-making of cruise travel together, attend formal welcome and farewell parties together on the cruise, take part in all kinds of activities carefully designed by cruise staffs, and visit different natural scenery and local customs on shore. Moreover, the cruise lines are abundant, duration of the journey is flexible, prices depend on people. All of these provides plenty of promising opportunities for Chinese kids and parents market.
7.3. Shopping and facilities
"Shopping" and “facilities” rank the seventh and eighth in the statistics of high-frequency words, reflecting its importance as two of the six elements of tourism. Shopping is strong demanded but duty-free shops are crowded. It can be seen from the above analysis that the types and services of duty-free shops on cruise ships need to be improved. Park and Lee (2019) demonstrate that the respondents placed the highest value on having a variety of shopping items in duty-free shops on board [61]. Relying on the policy advantages of China's cruise tourism development experiment, duty-free shopping center for cruise tourists near the home port could be set up so as to meet the tourist’s shopping experience. In addition, it is essential to design product creatively, emphasize differentiation, and enrich cruise shopping and entertainment facilities on and off cruise. There are still some unsatisfactory factors though it is generally in a controllable state. "Entertainment" on board should be strengthened because 7.08% tourists feel unsatisfied. Enriching recreational facilities for the elderly and children is necessary. For tourists, the reason they can enjoy leisure activities on the cruise is to use entertainment facilities and related carriers, and the satisfaction of tourists mainly depends on the above factors.
7.4. Tour guide service
From statistics, the high frequency word "scenic spot" and "shore" is located in the forefront, closely linked to the semantic web "guide" shown in Figure 3. It shows from interview that the essence of the cruise product is experience. However, more and more Chinese tourists accept and try leisure and relaxation tourism style. Chinese tourists still rely on tour guides in cruise tourism, so cruise companies and travel agencies should strengthen the skills training of tour guides and tour leaders, so as to improve tourists' sense of experience. On the other hand, cruise lines and home ports should attach importance to brand building, adhere to quality service standards, and provide humanized services for tourists. In short, continuous optimization of service quality and improvement of service level from various aspects is the long-term task of cruise tourism development, and also an important countermeasure to improve cruise tourists' satisfaction.
In general, the aim of this research is to find the driving force conducive to the sustainable development of cruise tourism in the “tourist source” and “procurement” of the value chain. From this study, “tourist source” of Chinese senior citizens market, marketing to kids and parents is worth digging. Especially in the context of Chinese culture, families pay more and more travel expenses for the elderly and children, thus creating a huge market.
In terms of “procurement”, we will focus on the improvement of the shopping conditions on cruise and home ports, increase the space of shopping places, offer variety of goods and the creativity of commodities, improve the facilities of cruise and home ports, enhance the service awareness and level of tour guides, upgrade the satisfaction of tourists and the rate of revisiting, and tourists are willing to play important role in word-of-mouth publicity.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper weaknesses are still present, if the study was in 2018 and the first version of the paper mentioned that the authors interviewed 10 persons, now are 57 or 54? In the method says 54 then in the page 12 says 57. The it is not clear what the objective still in academic terms it does not significant contribute anything. The results of the analysis of the comments reveal concepts that have already been identified, so there is no novelty, no contribution. And yes, the sample of 10 people cannot be representative at all.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1:The paper weaknesses are still present, if the study was in 2018 and the first version of the paper mentioned that the authors interviewed 10 persons, now are 57 or 54? In the method says 54 then in the page 12 says 57.
Response 1: In part of method and Page 12, they are all 54 interviewees. We are sorry for our incorrect expression, because we have another data 537 online comments which make the reviewer confused (During the trip, 54 tourists are interviewed to provide their thoughts on their satisfaction with the trip. Considering 54 samples are far from adequate, a total of 537 more online comments concerned with the “World Dream” are collected as supplementary to assure tourists score from cruise interview and online texts being objective. The samples of interviews are expanded to 54 people from 10, just because we seek for more cruise passengers in the same cruise, make further study to assure possible high quality. Meanwhile, Table 3 has been eliminated, and the interviewer’s narratives are replaced. Besides, as mentioned in the original text, " We choose 537 comments of "World Dream" excluding duplicates and irrelevant to the topic " as supplementary sample.
Point 2: The it is not clear what the objective still in academic terms it does not significant contribute anything. The results of the analysis of the comments reveal concepts that have already been identified, so there is no novelty, no contribution.
Response 2:The manuscript adds a major part of research contribution in the end to make explanation and supplement in detail. We have revised these parts according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
- Research Contributions
First, at the level of strategic cooperation, there is a symbiotic relationship between the cruise home port and the cruise company on the industrial chain. As the docking port of the cruise company, the home port must provide first-class connection services, understand the whole process of the cruise company, comb the core link of the value chain -- tourists source and procurement, and play the role of information flow and technology flow. Information technology (IT) competency and knowledge management (KM) contribute to service supply chain (SSC) (coordination, collaboration and efficiency) practices in the hospitality industry[62]. As one of three prominent flows (material, money, information) in a supply chain, the information flow plays a key role in supply chain performance and also in reaching high degrees of integrity and cooperation between supply chain members[63].
Second, at the operational level, especially at the sales level, the cruise home port can assume the role of organizer. The cruise home port organization establishes cruise alliance, gathers the cruise company's sales agent, forms the joint force in the marketing on the basis of the cultural organization identification. A supportive organisational culture is a prerequisite to success for companies that wish to scale up the volume of sustainable products they source and sell. Sustainability only sells when it contributes to an organisation's ability to meet its requirement of quality of service, especially in relation to suitability of the products to its target markets and reinforcing professional and trustworthy relationships[64].
Third, at the practical level, the implementation of green supply chain depends on infrastructure procurement, by building value-adding shopping centers, training tour guides and cruise staffs, seizing China's emerging elderly market and parent-child market. By all means, customer value in tourism and hospitality can broadening dimensions and stretching the value-satisfaction-loyalty chain[65]
Fourth, in the long run of sustainable development, the relationship between value chain appreciation and incremental growth can be derived from the model to develop the cruise tourism industry. Cruise related company’s evolvement of the single chain development path can be reproducible horizontal and vertical chain cooperation development path by sharing customer resources, meeting the demand of the sustainable development of the supply chain, and by forming a single profit on cost and profit model to various complex of copy success profit pattern direction from low to high growth.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
It is a good paper that addresses the study of cruise tourism from the value chain approach through content analysis. With an interesting contribution to literature.
In my opinion the paper can be improved in the presentation of the background. The authors make an interesting review of the literature on cruise tourism, something general, but I think they should focus on the topic of the paper, value chain.
On the other hand, the presentation of the research idea should be improved. The research question is not very clear, nor the study proposals. This could improve the paper
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: It is a good paper that addresses the study of cruise tourism from the value chain approach through content analysis. With an interesting contribution to literature.
In my opinion the paper can be improved in the presentation of the background. The authors make an interesting review of the literature on cruise tourism, something general, but I think they should focus on the topic of the paper, value chain.
Response 1: We are very grateful for the reviewer’s encourage. We have revised these parts according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
Add Page 4 Line 130
Liu et al. (2017) argue that effective and flexible use of value chain makes related company realize value increment, and further realize value chain proliferation. As shown in Table 1, from development perspective of the number, speed and profit model listed in the longitudinal column, the value chain increment refers to the single-strand shown in the value chain with low speed for cost plus profit mode of value chain add value. Value chain proliferation refers to two or more chain shown in the value chain with fast speed for profit model of copying with the value chain to expand reproduction effect on the road to success. From the value chain increment to value chain proliferation, it is an orderly and progressive process [25].
Table 1. Comparative statement of value chain increment and proliferation
|
Development |
Comparative Statement |
|
|
Value chain increment |
Value chain proliferation |
|
|
number |
single-strand |
two or more chains |
|
speed |
low |
fast |
|
model |
cost plus profit |
copying with the value chain to expand reproduction effect |
Source: Liu et al. (2017) Value chain increment and proliferation
Point 2: On the other hand, the presentation of the research idea should be improved. The research question is not very clear, nor the study proposals. This could improve the paper.
Response 2: We are very grateful for the reviewer’s encourage. We have revised these parts according to the reviewer’s suggestion in the the first paragraph of 9. Limitations and Future Research.
In this paper, a combination of quantitative research and qualitative research is adopted to seek favorable factors for passenger sources and procurement in the value chain of cruise related compannies in the direction of win-win development of cruise ships and home ports. First, through text analysis, the evaluation of cruise tourists on the Internet is captured from the big data of Ctrip, and a large-scale, frame-based and broad-line survey is conducted for the online crowd. Then, through face-to-face interviews with cruise tourists, a small-scale in-depth and detailed research is conducted on the elderly and parent-child market, with diversified and extensive sampling. By analyzing the run-length of cruise tourists experience feedback, the most closely-watched tourist market and their hardware and software facilities are extracted to draw the attention of the cruise, home port and other related enterprises, forming the value chain cooperation with joint effort, pushing up the value chain proliferation and value-added effect. SSP has been exploring in this aspect, but there are not many cruise-related enterprises with the awareness of these value chains. This paper hopes to provide some ideas and suggestions, so as to make cruise-related enterprises move towards multi-win cooperation from the aspects of strategy, operation and implementation.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper has been improved in the presentation of the background, in the presentation of the research idea and the methodology. Now, this version is better and after the efforts of the authors, I consider that it deserves the approval of publishing in the new version.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: The paper has been improved in the presentation of the background, in the presentation of the research idea and the methodology. Now, this version is better and after the efforts of the authors, I consider that it deserves the approval of publishing in the new version.
Response 1: We are very grateful for the reviewer’s encourage. We appreciate your work, and hope that the later correction will meet with approval. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review the paper “Cruise Tourism for Sustainability: An Exploration of 3 Value Chain in Shenzhen Shekou Port” The paper presents a proper structure and appropriate wording. The topic is interesting. The references are accurate.
However, unfortunately for the reasons that follow I am not able to support the advancement of this paper through the review process:
The contribution of the study needs to be strengthened, the paper doesn´t make a significant addition to the literature. The paper doesn´t contain new and significant information adequate to justify publication. The paper doesn't argument built on an appropriate base of theory. The sample of 10 interviews cannot be represented at all. The results of the analysis of the comments reveal concepts that have already been identified in the literature, so there is not novelty contribution.
In conclusion, the contribution of the paper to the body of knowledge on cruise tourism is unconvincing. The relationship between the objectives of the study and the research question(s) is not clear.
The author(s) should try to make an effort explaining in the introduction how this paper contributes to the literature seems only the value is for managers but in the academic area which is the gap and value of this study? , the authors explain a little of contribution in point 3. Cruise Company Value Chain, but not is enough and I think it should be in Introduction.
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript has a number of flaws, starting with the main contribution of the study which appears to be rather contextual than academic.
First of all, the authors do not make clear what the objective of the research is. Many of the sentences do not make much sense in English. For instance: "network textual analysis is generated spontaneously by tourists with strong authenticity and great research value". What do you mean exactly by "tourists with strong authenticity"? Apart from the textual analysis that is performed in the paper, the authors have conducted personal interviews, but their number is so small (only 10!), that no generalizability of the results can be assumed.
Furthermore, the research results are not novel: previous studies have already found that the concepts of "cruise", "service", "itinerary" and "tour guide" are key in a cruise experience. In this regard, I do not see any merit in this paper, as its contribution to the current cruise tourism literature is vague.
Lastly, there are some references which are not correctly cited, as instead of citing the authors' last names, their first names have been written (see citations Nº 9, 41, 42, 44, 46 and 52).
On the basis of the above, my recommendation is to reject this manuscript, as while it might be useful for the Shenzhen Shekou Port, it does not add any novelty to the existing academic literature.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
You have an interesting topic, but there is a lot of improvement needed.
Section 3. Where do the author use in their research The Value Chain Theory? Figure 1 has no use in my opinion and I think it is incomplete. I cannot see the relation with the article.
The authors must pay attention to the structure of the paper, Conclusions are placed before Discussions. The section Discussions needs a lot of improvement since the authors do not comment the results in the context of previous researches.
Good luck!
