Sympathetic sentiment to Serbia among Chinese netizens: the influence of Chinese cyber nationalism and patriotism on pre-travel tourist behaviour

Identifier:  TFM:538

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFM538

Authors:  LI, Yihan

Abstract:
Relationships between Chinese cyber nationalism/patriotism and Chinese outbound tourists’ destination awareness and travel intention to Serbia was evaluated under the context of COVID-19 pandemic with a standard quantitative method. Employing LDA-based topic clustering, Chi-square test and Pearson’s correlation test, the author found that Chinese cyber nationalism and patriotism have negative influences on Chinese outbound tourists’ travel intention to Serbia, and COVID -19 pandemic could not reinforce Chinese outbound tourists' travel intention to Serbia. This negative correlation may be interpreted by the unpredictable travel policy due to the spread-out of COVID-19 diseases, unsound financial situation of Chinese outbound tourists after the strike of COVID-19 pandemic, and low priority to Serbia as a must- go travel destination. This study provides an insight to Chinese outbound tourism market that Chinese cyber nationalism and tourism should be taken into careful considerations when destination countries propose and implement new travel policies. The focus on Serbia, a country either has sovereignty conflict or historic issues with China, offers an alternative angle to review and develop Chinese outbound tourism marking strategies in western world, especially in European countries.