“Don’t go for humiliation.” Mainland Chinese cyber nationalism versus visitation to Hong Kong Yang Liu A dissertation submitted to Auckland University of Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of International Tourism Management (MITM) 2016 School of Hospitality and Tourism Primary Supervisor: Dr Charles S. Johnston Table of Contents List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ v Attestation of Authorship ............................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... vii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. viii Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 9 1.1 Opening remarks ......................................................................................................................... 9 1.2 Assumptions, research question and objectives ........................................................................ 10 1.3 The methodology applied ......................................................................................................... 11 1.4 The significance of the study .................................................................................................... 12 1.5 The outline of the study ............................................................................................................ 13 Chapter 2 Background ........................................................................................................... 15 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 15 2.2 From poor sibling to rich relative – The loss and return of Hong Kong .................................. 15 2.3 From Paradise to Heaven – The rise and fall of Mainland visitors to Hong Kong ................... 16 2.4 “One country, two systems” – The Chinese cyber nationalism towards Hong Kong .............. 22 2.4.1 “Dogs” vs “Locusts” ........................................................................................................ 24 2.4.2 Anchor babies in Hong Kong ............................................................................................ 26 2.4.3 Anti-parallel traders, Anti-individual visit ....................................................................... 26 2.5 The flourishing of Chinese cyber nationalism .......................................................................... 30 2.5.1 “No TOEFL, no GRE, concentrated on fighting back the U.S.” ...................................... 31 2.5.2 “Never travel to Japan, never be a Hanjian.” .................................................................. 32 2.5.3 “Boycott French goods starting from Carrefour” ........................................................... 35 2.6 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 36 Chapter 3 Literature Review ................................................................................................. 38 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 38 3.2 Chinese cyber nationalism ........................................................................................................ 38 3.2.1 Nationalism ....................................................................................................................... 38 3.2.2 Chinese nationalism .......................................................................................................... 40 3.2.3 Chinese cyber nationalism ................................................................................................ 41 3.3 Tourist behaviour ...................................................................................................................... 43 3.3.1 Overview of tourist behaviour .......................................................................................... 43 3.3.2 Tourist attitude .................................................................................................................. 44 3.3.3 Tourist decision-making .................................................................................................... 45 3.4 Chinese nationalism in tourism ................................................................................................. 46 3.4.1 Consumer nationalism ...................................................................................................... 47 3.4.2 Chinese nationalism and tourist behaviour ...................................................................... 49 3.5 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 50 ii Chapter 4 Methodology ........................................................................................................ 51 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 51 4.2 Methodological approach .......................................................................................................... 51 4.2.1 Research paradigm ........................................................................................................... 52 4.2.2 Quantitative and qualitative methodology ........................................................................ 53 4.3 Research design ........................................................................................................................ 54 4.4 Population and Sampling .......................................................................................................... 57 4.5 Data collection .......................................................................................................................... 59 4.6 Data analysis ............................................................................................................................. 60 4.6.1 ARIMA forecasting model for tourist arrivals analysis .................................................... 60 4.6.2 Content analysis for attitude and intention ....................................................................... 61 4.6.3 SPSS for Correlation analysis .......................................................................................... 64 4.7 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 5 Findings and Discussion ....................................................................................... 66 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 66 5.2 Mainland tourist arrivals pattern in Hong Kong ....................................................................... 66 5.2.1 Seasonality and growth tendency ...................................................................................... 68 5.2.2 ARIMA forecasting result ................................................................................................. 70 5.3 Chinese cyber nationalism patterns on Weibo .......................................................................... 71 5.3.1 Manifestation of Chinese cyber nationalism ..................................................................... 71 5.3.2 Response of “angry youth” ............................................................................................... 74 5.4 Attitude towards Hong Kong .................................................................................................... 79 5.4.1 Comparison of Computer-assisted versus Human coding results .................................... 79 5.4.2 Tendency of monthly comments versus monthly visitation growth rate ........................... 82 5.5 Travel intention ......................................................................................................................... 84 5.6 Correlation ................................................................................................................................ 87 5.6.1 Correlation between attitude and tourist arrival .............................................................. 87 5.6.2 Correlation between SMA attitude and tourist arrival ..................................................... 88 5.7 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 90 Chapter 6 Conclusion and Suggestions ................................................................................. 92 6.1 Recapitulation ........................................................................................................................... 92 6.2 Summary of research findings .................................................................................................