Some considerations of impacts of attitude to foreigners by hotel workers in the Peoples Republic of China on hospitality service

Chinese people have long been considered to be xenophobic, and this has not been helped by the isolationist stance imposed by the communist (Chinese socialist) leaders over the past several decades. The present study was carried out to discover the attitudes of hotel workers in the Peoples Republic of China (P.R.C.) to visitors to their country who stayed in hotels. A rationale is presented for subdividing visitors into ethnic groupings, these being: Western; Japanese; South East Asian; overseas (compatriot) Chinese; and local Chinese. Given these groupings, the study goes on to use repertory grid analysis to analyse the attitudes of a sample of hotel workers from a variety of departments within hotels, and from a diverse regional spread throughout PRC, to their hotel guests. It was found that there was considerable uniformity of view of the workers, independant of hotel department, as to the attributes of their guests relative to their ethnic origin. The most significant distinction was that the Japanese, South East Asian and local Chinese were all linked together as sharing negative attributes, that is to say they were generally disliked by the hotel workers. Conversely, the Western people and other (compatriot) Chinese were generally perceived to have positive attributes and were less unwelcome. These findings are discussed in more detail in the paper. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.