2017-2018 Colloquium Series
The Tourism Studies Working Group is pleased to announce
The Tourist Motivations of Foreign Visiting Scholars and their Exotic Culture Experiences: A Case Study of Chinese visiting scholars at UC Berkeley
Dr. Na Gong
Postdoc, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Friday, Aug. 11, 5:00pm
Gifford Room, 221 Kroeber Hall
University of California, Berkeley

Photo: Na Gong at Taos Pueblo, NM
Abstract:
Since its establishment in 1996, the China Scholarship Council has funded many Chinese scholars to visit universities abroad in developed countries to conduct and write up their research. Attracted by the countries where they temporarily reside as foreign visiting scholars, they have an influential and continuing effect on the host country’s tourism industry in terms of their own education-related activities and expenditures. In light of Chinese scholars’ presence in the United States as tourists, the case will study Chinese visiting scholars at the University of California, Berkeley, and analyze their tourism impulses in their encounter with Western culture,particularly in the scenic west coast of the United States. To be specific, this paper will research visiting scholars’ tourism motivation, their roles in traveling with their family and friends, their motives in spending their holidays, images of the USA in their eyes and so on. This paper proposes a more integrative theoretical framework, based upon previous studies,in an attempt to better describe and explain the visiting scholars’ preferential choices of tourism attractions as well as the practical and theoretical implications of the framework.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Na Gong is a Postdoc in Department of Anthropology at U C Berkeley. She was awarded her PhD in Tourism Management at Business School of Sichuan University (2010), and she is a teacher in International Tourism and Culture College in Guizhou Normal University. Her main field focuses on the tourism economy in minority area of southwest in China, especially in Guizhou Province. She is also involved in the social-culture development in ethnic regions in Guizhou. She has published many papers and participated in many projects which have won awards for her research. |