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The aim of this study is to examine the roles of social identity and perceived cultural distance in forming the attitude of Hong Kong residents toward the relaxation of the individual visit scheme (IVS).

Face-to-face interviews with local Hong Kong residents were conducted. A total of 24 respondents’ interviews were qualified for qualitative analysis using the snowball sampling technique.

The perceived positive and negative impacts, social identity and perceived cultural distance of Hong Kong residents were important in explaining their attitude toward tourism development. Perceived cultural distance influenced both the perceived negative impacts and social identity of residents, which, in turn, affected their attitude toward mainland Chinese tourists and tourism development.

The sample size for the interviews was relatively small; however, it was acceptable for qualitative studies.

First, the Hong Kong Government should enhance civic education among mainland Chinese tourists to reduce their cultural conflicts with Hong Kong residents. Second, the Hong Kong Government should enhance national education among Hong Kong residents to mitigate the negative influence of the relaxation of the IVS.

This study sheds light on the roles of perceived cultural distance and social identity in the attitude of residents toward tourism development, thus narrowing research gaps. Moreover, the current study applies an intercultural-interaction perspective, social identity theory, common in-group identity theory and social distance theory to understand resident attitude toward tourism development.

Mainland Chinese students are the largest group of international students globally. The role of international students in destination marketing can be seen as “Word-of-Mouth Champions”. This study attempts to examine the effect of place attachment and affinity for Mainland Chinese students on generating word-of-mouth intention towards their place of study.

Six well-trained research assistants collected paper-based questionnaires in six institutions in Macao. They chose every tenth student who passed by to fill in the questionnaire at six locations in each institution. This study employed partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to estimate the strength of causal relationship among place identity, place dependence, affinity and intention to word-of-mouth.

The results of the survey from 327 students in Macao indicate that place dependence, place identity and affinity drive Mainland Chinese students to provide word-of-mouth regarding Macao. Place dependence has a positive influence on place identity, and place identity has a positive influence on affinity with residents. However, place dependence has no significant direct effect on affinity.

Evidence from this study indicates the importance of students' word-of-mouth as they as sojourners, in particular, the students' place attachment and affinity for residents is critical to positive their Word-of-mouth on destinations. This research offers insights about the potential group which need require attention.

This study fills a research gap by exploring the relationship between place attachment and social distance in influencing Mainland Chinese students' behaviour, a relationship that has rarely been investigated in tourism research. Practical recommendations are provided to the governments, universities and education enterprises according to the results of the study. From both theoretical and practical perspectives, the findings from this study suggest promoting international students to turn into real “Word-of-Mouth Champions”.

Travel websites allow tourists to share their thoughts, beliefs and experiences regarding various travel destinations. In this paper, the researchers demonstrated an approach for destination marketing organisations to explore online tourist-generated content and understand tourists' perceptions of the destination image (DI). Specifically, the researchers initiated an investigation examining how the destination image of Macau changed during the period of 2014–2018 based on user-generated content on travel websites.

Web crawlers developed by Python were employed to collect tourists' reviews from both Ctrip and TripAdvisor regarding the theme of “Macau attraction”. A total of 51,191 reviews (41,352 from Ctrip and 9,839 from TripAdvisor) were collected and analysed using the text-mining technique.

The results reveal that the frequency of casino-related words decreased in reviews by both international and mainland Chinese tourists. Additionally, international and mainland Chinese tourists perceive the DI of Macau differently. Mainland Chinese tourists are more sensitive to new attractions, while international tourists are not. The study also shows that there are differences between the government-projected DI and the tourist-perceived DI. Only the “City of Culture” and “A World Centre of Tourism and Leisure” have built recognition with tourists.

Given the easy accessibility of online information from various sources, it is important for destination marketing organisations to analyse and monitor different DI perspectives and adjust their branding strategies for greater effectiveness. This study uncovered the online DI of Macau by using text mining and content analysis of two of the largest travel websites. By analysing and comparing the differences and relationships among the frequently used words of tourist-generated content on these websites, the researchers revealed some interesting findings with important marketing implications.

This paper aims to study the shopping preferences of the mainland Chinese travelers who visit Hong Kong under the solo travel policy (STP), and identify the differences between their expected and actual satisfactory levels towards fashion retailers in Hong Kong.

An empirical research method with surveys was employed. Statistical methods, such as the paired t‐test, were used to analyze the data.

A significant difference between the respondents' actual shopping satisfactions and their expectations was found for several factors. Some shopping preferences and spending patterns of the STP travelers were identified.

Owing to resource constraints, the data were collected at a few locations only. This is a major research limitation of this study.

The research findings can help fashion retailers to understand better the needs of STP travelers from mainland China. Some specific recommendations are given and managerial insights are generated.

This paper undertakes empirical research to study mainland tourists' shopping behavior towards Hong Kong fashion retailers under the STP. This study is one of the first research works exploring this area.

This paper gives a preliminary analysis of the development of mainland China's outbound tourism market, including national policy, classifications, main destinations, tourism source regions and so on. It also includes case studies from Hong Kong and Guangdong Province. Finally, it briefly outlines the problems of the market and the new policy in this field.

This paper explicates news making process of social risks in the midst of inconclusive social facts and contested interpretation of social consequences. Specifically, the author aims to investigate how journalists perform the normative role of “Burglar Alarms” – raising social concern to risks and problems amid uncertainties stemming from risk society. Shedding light on the controversies of “tourism capacity” in Hong Kong, this study unravels how news discourses represented the social risks of “outnumbered” Chinese tourists amid ambiguous facts and questionable credibility of news sources. Content analysis of news discourses and interviews with journalists showed that there are emerging journalistic practices – namely, witnessing performativity and opinionated objectivity – to construct social risks in view of less credible news sources, volatile public opinion and highly speculative news events.

Content analysis of news discourses was represented in the press and in-depth interviews with journalists.

Content analysis of news discourses and interviews with journalists showed that there are emerging journalistic practices – namely, witnessing performativity and opinionated objectivity – to construct social risks in view of less credible news sources, volatile public opinion and highly speculative news events.

Informed by the theory of risk society, this paper explores how journalists set out the “Burglar Alarms” of social risks by constructing social facts in the midst of questionable authorities and limited expert advice. Instead of relying on authoritative interpretation of social risks, journalists performed as the witnesses to the “reality” of social risks and problems, however selective and interpretative, to the audience. They also articulated to the general will of the people and selective representation of everyday life experience so as to justify their opinionated news angle and the pledge to news objectivity.

The aim of this study is to explore the host–guest relationship at a macro level, investigating the sociopsychological relationship between a destination and its markets.

This study adopted netnography to fulfill the research purpose. Data were collected from Sina Microblog, the predominant social media platform in China, focused on bloggers responses to a fatal conflict between a tour participant and the guide during a shopping tour.

Bloggers' attributional discussions help to understand the nature of the host–guest relations. Responses from Chinese and Hong Kong bloggers showcased criticism toward the other community and criticism of one's own community. These were reflected in three themes: concerns with the place of conflict or the identities of the perpetrators, hospitableness or discrimination and the Chinese and Hong Kong cultures.

The major limitation is that the subject of this study (young bloggers) does not represent a complete cross section of the residents of China and Hong Kong. This study suggests a need for a broader theoretical perspective of the host–guest encounter. The study results have practical implications for destinations receiving Chinese group package tours.

The study results have practical implications for destinations receiving Chinese group package tours.

On-site interaction has been the focus of previous studies of the host–guest relationship, and off-site interactions were seldom explored. This study bridges the gap and extends the discourse on the host–guest relationship to a wider temporal (by taking a post event view) and spatial (by assessing the issue off-site) scale.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the positive aspects of casinos, and gambling entertainment in particular, by revealing the health potential of these commercial establishments. In doing so, this work helps explain the affinity of Chinese consumers with gambling.

The authors draw on Attention Restoration Theory to put forth a framework on the restorative potential of a casino on human health and its effects on managerial outcomes. The authors use a sample of 605 Chinese tourists in Macau and use both structural equation modeling and moderation analyses.

Tourists’ ability to sense a casino’s restorative potential is positively related to their well-being and their propensity to view Macau as a value, to spend money in Macau and to revisit Macau. Moderation analyses reveal that tourists may still perceive a casino’s restorative qualities regardless of whether they plan to engage in gambling or other activities, are winning or losing money or reside outside mainland China.

The paper links gaming studies to the transformative research paradigm and considers the possibility that some socially unacceptable services may actually be beneficial to human well-being.

The results help clarify why Chinese tourists tend to engage in casino patronage and gambling activities throughout the world.

This work discusses health benefits associated with socially unacceptable products and suggests that many “sinful services” may offer consumers transformative benefits.

The paper is one of the first to explore positive aspects of gambling and spending time in casino environments, while showing that casinos may be “healthy places” for some consumers.

This chapter assesses the portrayal in the online English media of mainland China tourist behavior. Social representation theory is used to classify and interpret the major themes being portrayed in recent online reports. The analysis suggested two emancipated representations, one which incorporated both “ugly” behavior and positive issues, while the second view highlighted the undesirable behaviors due to cultural clashes. Two minority representations also existed. The first offered a warm welcome toward the more sophisticated and well-educated market and the other stressed the potential damage to China’s national reputation of their unfavorable behavior. Implications and directions for future research and viewing outbound tourists are offered.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the changing pattern of identity politics in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). It shows that in response to the massive urban renewal projects in the 2000s, “civic localism” in the form of cultural preservation movement emerged to protect local community culture against the government-business hegemony. However, due to the deepening of social integration between Hong Kong and the mainland, a new “anti-mainland localism” emerged in the 2010s against the influx of mainlanders. In 2015–2016, as a result of Beijing’s active interference in Hong Kong affairs, localism is further transformed to Hong Kong “independence.”

This paper uses a historical methodology to trace the changing pattern of identity politics in Hong Kong after it becomes a special administrative region of China in 1997.

It shows how the interaction among the following three factors has shaped the pattern of localism in Hong Kong: macro historical-structural context, social movement dynamics and the response of Hong Kong and mainland government.

This paper argues that Beijing’s hardline policy toward Hong Kong localism may work in the short run to all push the pro-independence activities underground. However, unless the structural contradiction of the HKSAR is resolved, it seems likely that anti-mainland localism and Hong Kong independence sentiment and movement will come back with a vengeance at a later stage.

The literature tends to discuss Hong Kong localism in very general terms and fails to reveal its changing nature. This paper contributes by distinguishing three different forms of localism: civic localism in the mid-2000s, anti-mainland in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and independence after 2016. It shows how the macro historical-structural transformation, social movement dynamics and the responses of the Hong Kong SAR government and Beijing government have led to the changes of civic localism to anti-mainland localism, and finally to independence.