Cultural Exchange
Chinese Consumers' Experiences with Australian Wine and Winery Tour
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ning Niu
My project hinges on consumer taste, wine production and winery tourism which are related to the Chinese market, consumers and visitors traveling to Australian wineries. This current research combines the concepts of habitus, taste, capital proposed by Pierre Bourdieu with concepts within China’s cultural context including mianzi (face, dignity/honor/hierarchy), guanxi (connections/social network), in order to develop new perspectives to study the tastes of Chinese tourists coming to Australia for wine experiences. The project applies qualitative research and draws conclusions from the fieldwork and the document analysis. An embodied ethnography is used to observe the Chinese participants’ feelings, thoughts, and experiences of their engagement with Australian wine and vineyards. I conduct interviews with the Chinese consumers, tourism professionals and Australian winemakers and wine critic/judge to collect primary data. I travel to five Australian wine regions for fieldwork including Penfolds (most reputed Australian brand), members from Australia’s First Families of Wine (Taylor, Tyrrell and Tahbilk ) which are most historic and respectable wine brands in Australia, together with Sirromet (biggest wine brand in Queensland), spanning over South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. I interview tourism professionals who are experts in Australian wine tourism, the Chinese consumers and tourists. This project will contribute to knowledge by summarizing literature review and conducting fieldwork. My project will offer a series of discoveries and suggestions for when Australian wine or tourism industries communicate with Chinese market. In all, my project will improve cultural exchanges, wine and tourism market volumes between Australia and China.
Socially-Responsible Travel: Case of International Service Learning to Costa Rica
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Pavlina Latkova
The study examined American college students’ international service learning (ISL) experience in Costa Rica. The ISL trips were designed to provide students with socially-responsible and environmentally conscious experiences as a way to raise their awareness of tourism negative impacts on Costa Rican Afro-Caribbean and indigenous communities they visited during their trip. Participants included 63 students enrolled in faculty-led international service-learning classes that traveled to Costa Rica between 2016 and 2019. Semi-structured interviews were conducted via Skype prior and after the trips. In addition, students reflected on their 10-day experience daily in their travel journal. The interviews were transcribed verbatim; two researchers coded both interviews and journal reflections to identify emerging themes. Participants reported the ISL was an important part of their trip because it facilitated cultural immersion, and enabled them to give back to the community and connect with people and natural settings they visited. The results of the study suggest there may be an increased demand for trips with a service learning component among college students, arguably because of service learning’s potential to facilitate a meaningful connection between ISL’s participants and destinations’ natural and cultural environment.
