Cultural Characteristics and Tourist Shopping Spending

Although the cultural impact of tourism shopping has been extensively studied, prior research rarely related tourism shopping to specific cultural dimensions and distance, and tested the relationships statistically. This article fills this gap by investigating the comprehensive effects of Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance) and cultural distance on shopping. In an analysis of Hong Kong’s inbound tourism, panel regression tests support power distance and masculinity as two key cultural values in determining a country’s tourist shopping spending in a destination, while the effects of individualism and uncertainty avoidance are marginally significant. A U-shaped curvilinear relationship is found for cultural distance and shopping spending ratio, suggesting that tourists’ allocation of monetary resource on shopping decreases with cultural distance first and increases later after an optimal point. A discussion of contributions and limitations is included.