Tourists’ Experience of the Palace Museum in Beijing: An Analysis of Online Reviews

Date
2022
Authors
Guo, Chenchen
Supervisor
Bremner, Hamish
Item type
Dissertation
Degree name
Master of International Tourism Management
Journal Title
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Volume Title
Publisher
Auckland University of Technology
Abstract

In this study, by studying the tourist experience of cultural heritage tourism as reviewed on Trip Advisor and C-trip, the factors influencing tourists' experiences at the Palace Museum were analysed from the point of view of cultural heritage tourism and the construction of heritage tourism. The study proposed strategies and suggestions for cultural heritage conservation and cultural heritage tourism development.

The Palace Museum in Beijing is known as a cultural heritage destination with a rich traditional culture, attracting a large number of tourists to this cultural symbol in China, but it also generates a series of problems. In this context, this study used secondary data in the form of reviews by tourists who had visited the Palace Museum after 2019. The data were used as primary data for this study and analysed to identify the factors influencing tourists' cultural heritage tourism experience and the importance of each factor. The study also examined the tourist interpretations of the Palace Museum in Beijing in terms of both the content and medium of interpretation.

By analysing the travel website reviews, it was found that tourists' experiences of world heritage tourism at the Palace Museum were positive, negative and neutral, and could be categorised as into two themes, product and service, From the data, it was found that the architectural experience of the Palace Museum in Beijing was memorable in the perception of tourists. As an important tourism resource, historic buildings began to receive widespread attention in the 1990s, and conservation attempts have evolved from pure conservation to practical conservation. In the process of tourism, the behaviour of visitors and their satisfaction with their experience, has had a significant impact on the conservation of historic buildings. It was found that visitors have a good overall impression of the Palace Museum buildings, but do not have a strong sense of conservation. Based on the disciplines of economics, management, architecture, tourism and communication, this study analyses the tourists' evaluation of the experience of cultural heritage tourism sites, examines the relationship between world heritage conservation and tourism, and summarizes and analyses the cultural promotion content, tour guide literacy, interpretation content, interpretation skills, facilities and equipment of cultural heritage tourism sites from multiple perspectives. In addition, in terms of interpretation content, tourists prefer guided tours, followed by audio tours, and other media are used less than these. In this study, the interpretation content was divided into self-guided and guided tours. Based on the analysis of tourists' evaluation of the interpretation experience, it was found that in terms of the content of self-guided interpretation, the interpretation lacked interest and storytelling, the translation was not adequate, and the annotation of traditional culture in the interpretation was not sufficient, making it difficult for tourists to understand. The role of self-guided interpretation media is weak; in terms of interpretation staff, the language ability of guides is low, the quality of service varies, and little attention is paid to issues such as interpretation of cultural relics. In response, this study offers some suggestions for tourism development at similar World Heritage sites in order to create unique cultural symbols and enhance the visitor experience, and hopefully provide lessons for tourism conservation and development at heritage sites.

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Keywords
Cultural heritage tourism , Beijing , The Palace Museum , Visitor experience
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