Understanding China's long-haul outbound travel market: An overlapped segmentation approach

This study replicates and augments a segmentation approach with overlapped schemes by examining the Chinese outbound travel market. A total of 1,600 past and potential long-haul Chinese outbound tourists in three Chinese cities were surveyed and segmented into three groups with overlapped segment members: Entertainment/Adventure Seekers, Life-seeing Experience/Culture Explorers, and Relaxation/Knowledge Seekers. The canonical correlation analysis along with the assignment scheme assigns respondents to canonical variates forming product bundles and implied market segments. The findings provide important insight on destination marketing toward Chinese outbound tourists. Further, evidence suggests new and emerging markets are better served using an overlapped segmentation approach. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.