Designing high quality service experiences for Chinese golf tourists in Finland

Abstract

Increasing tourist flows from China to Europe have raised new needs for planning and designing tourism services and business in European countries. Also Finland has enjoyed rapid growth of tourism in recent years. This has in part led to a dilemma of creating new attractive tourism experiences to arriving Chinese tourists. Among other unique experiences, golf tourism has become increasingly attractive form of tourism for Chinese since the opening of first golf courses in early 1990s. Nevertheless, the topic of Chinese golf tourism in Finland has not been studied deeply before.

To fill the research gap and to support managerial decision making, this study applies the service design theory to formulate a service design framework for Finnish tourism operators and Chinese tourism agencies bringing Chinese golf tourists to Finland. In addition, Chinese and Finnish golf cultures are highlighted. By analysing company websites, newspapers and social media accounts and by interviewing a number of Chinese tour operators and a marketing assistant from a Chinese golf tourism agency C.U.Golf a number of critical service quality factors are found out. These findings are then applied into a framework and potential Finnish golf leisure destinations are suggested.