Exploring the attitudes of Chinese tourists towards adventure tourism in Queenstown, New Zealand

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to explore the attitudes of Chinese tourists towards adventure tourism in Queenstown, New Zealand.

The research questions raised are as follows: 1. To identify how likely Chinese tourists are to participate in particular adventure tourism activities, 2. To determine how Chinese tourists perceive the level of risk of different adventure tourism activities in Queenstown, 3. To explore what motivates Chinese tourists to participate in adventure tourism in Queenstown, 4. To ascertain what prohibits/stops Chinese tourists from participating in adventure tourism in Queenstown.

A positivism research design was used for this research in order to explore the attitudes of Chinese tourists towards adventure tourism in Queenstown. It used the mixed methods approach – questionnaire and interview. Questionnaires were completed by 170 Chinese tourists in Queenstown. Nineteen interviews were carried out for this research. The results of this research show that the top three adventure activities done by the largest number of participants were ledge swing, jet boating and bungy jumping. Meanwhile, bungy jumping was the most popular adventure activity for participants aged between 18 and 25 years. Ledge swing was the most appreciated by the group of the participants who were over 26 years old. The safest adventure activity was ledge swing for participants aged between 36 and 44 years. There are six main factors which motivated the participants to participate in adventure activities in Queenstown: personal interest and curiosity, accepting personal challenge, seeking novelty or a new experience, sharing experience with family or friends, experiencing the beauty of nature or scenery, and assurance of safety. The five factors that prohibited the participants from trying adventure activities included time constraints, concerns about risk, huge physical challenge, purely enjoying the beauty of nature or showing no interest/having no plans. Overall, this research aims to provide some reference information for future research in this field and in the adventure tourism industry.