PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2009, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (1): 153-160.doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2009.01.021

• Original Articles • Previous Articles    

Chinese Tourism Research Related to the Subject of South Korea: A Content Analysis

SEO Jin-Wook1, LIU Li1,2, WU Hui2   

  1. 1. College of Tourism and Culture, Paichai University, Daejeon 302735, Korea;
    2. Department of Tourism, Hefei University, Hefei 230601, China
  • Received:2008-10-01 Revised:2008-12-01 Online:2009-01-24 Published:2009-01-24

Abstract:

Tourism scholars of China have shown great interest in the subject related to South Korea due to the number of South Korean visitors to mainland China has been dramatically increased since the formal diplomatic relations was established between China and South Korea in 1992. Based on the comprehensive review of previous tourism literature related to South Korea published on the academic journals in mainland China from 1994 to 2008 by using a customized content analysis database, the present paper investigates the development and maturity of this research field to gain an understanding of its evolution and current status, and to provide insights into directions for future research. The analysis paints a picture of Chinese tourism research related to the subject of South Korea through an objective representation of the growing body of literature from multiple perspectives: research areas, keywords topics, research methodologies, data collection, to name a few. It concludes first that the main topics of current research in this field are: (1) to study on the research and development of South Korea tourism market from the point of view of China; (2) to analyze the successful experiences of South Korea in developing international tourism industry; and (3) to study the intercommunication and cooperation in tourism area between China and South Korea. And then the paper indicates the three characteristics of current research, which are (1) industry-driven research, (2) singleness of research method, and (3) superficiality of research content. Based on the above analysis the paper presents a conceptual framework of Chinese tourism research related to the subject of South Korea which seeks to map the directions and trends in future study. The paper suggests that, in the future, the levels of analysis should be transferred from macro level to meso and micro level, and academics should conduct more causal research, using correlational or experimental design and sophisticated statistical methods to study some new topics in this field, such as Korean tourist behavior research, spatial competition and regional cooperation between China and South Korea, rather than those that had been repeatedly studied by many scholars.

Key words: China, conceptual framework, content analysis, South Korea, tourism research