Preference and positioning analyses of overseas destinations by mainland Chinese outbound pleasure tourists

The objective of this study is to explore the competitiveness of overseas destination countries where potential Mainland Chinese outbound tourists consider making an overseas travel and the positioning of these destination countries. According to the analysis of importance of a destination's attributes, Mainland Chinese respondents considered "safety" and "beautiful scenery" to be the most important attributes. On the basis of KYST (Kruskal, Young, Shepard, and Torgerson) analysis, Mainland Chinese respondents perceived that the country pairs of Singapore and Thailand, Japan and South Korea, and Egypt and Germany showed a similar image. Results of the alternating least-square scaling (ALSCAL) analysis provided information on the relationship of competing countries to destination attributes. The results demonstrate competitiveness of destination countries and suggest strategies for destination markets to attract more Mainland Chinese tourists.