Chinese culture in tourist research: a review and comparison of Chinese and English studies in 1993-2012

Purpose With the worldwide growth of the Chinese tourism market, a number of studies have emerged, that attempt to understand the phenomenon, including the influence of Chinese culture on Chinese tourist behavior. This research aims to answer four questions: How has Chinese culture been adopted in tourism literature? What is the current state of tourism research on Chinese culture? What are the similarities, differences and research gaps between international and Chinese studies in this area of investigation? What are the directions that future tourism research will take? Design/methodology/approach The articles for this systematic review were published in major international hospitality and tourism journals and Chinese journals over a period of 20 years (1993-2012). A meta-review was carried out on 80 Chinese and English tourism literature dating from 1993 to 2012. Findings This review showed that Chinese culture has been fragmentally operationalized due to underdeveloped Chinese cultural theories in tourism, independent and unrelated extant cultural systems and perspectives and lack of empirical testing for theory development. Two major theoretical systems of Chinese culture in tourist research were revealed in this review: cross-cultural theory and traditional Chinese cultural framework. The current state of tourism research on Chinese culture was also analyzed. The similarities, differences and research gaps were identified between international and Chinese studies on this inquiry. Implications for future tourism research in this area were suggested. Research limitations/implications Unveiling the evolving research progress of a single culture helps to provide a deeper insight into how culture was used to analyze the behavior of individual tourist markets, and hence to better understand a particular tourist market. Originality/value This research has synthesized a wide range of literature to unveil the extant understanding of Chinese culture as reflected in Chinese tourists and outline the ways forward in this area of investigation.