Understanding Chinese girlfriend getaways: an interdependence perspective

The Chinese word guimi refers to a female's best same-sex friend. The guimi holiday of Chinese women, as a sub-segment of girlfriend getaways, has not yet been well addressed in the existing literature. This study extends interdependence theory, a social psychological theoretical framework for examining dyads and small groups, to the study of Chinese female tourists undertaking girlfriend getaways. The findings from 35 travel blogs reveal that Chinese girlfriend getaways demonstrate two types of power relations: power over and power to. The blogs exemplify four types of mutual dependence: skill, time, knowledge, and psychological dependence; as well as three types of conflict: cognitive, process-related, and relationship-related conflict. •Chinese girlfriend getaways are usually the travel of female same-sex friendship pairs.•Two types of power relations exist in Chinese girlfriend getaways, power to and power over•Various types of dependence and conflicts exist which shape the travel experience of girlfriend getaways.