With the sweeping popularity of Korean Wave across Asia, the number of Chinese tourists to Korea has rapidly been increasing over the last decade. Korea Tourism Organization estimates that the number of Chinese visitors exceeded 6 million in 2014, and Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade estimates that their spending in Korea surpassed KRW 7.67 trillion in 2013 alone. In particular, Chinese tourists spend most of their money in Korea on shopping. Since Chinese have become the major customers of the Korean market, it is critical to understand their consumption patterns and behavior. Previous studies looked into tourist destinations and shops that Chinese people frequently visited, and also researched on product selection criteria regarding their preference on fashion products. However, this study focuses on how Chinese tourists feel while they are shopping in Korea and how such emotions affect their evaluation on the purchased products.
Planned purchase refers to the situation where the buying intention of a consumer has already been formed prior to entering the store based on the perception of purchase necessity. An unplanned purchase is not anticipated or planned before the customer enters the store, and products are bought without planning similar to impulsive buying. Oliver (1980) suggested that emotions are an important factor when consumers evaluate a product. Therefore, this study focuses mainly on the emotion created during the shopping. We conceptualized product attitudes based on the expected consumer satisfaction paradigms of Oliver and Desarbo (1988). This study also explores the product usage satisfaction of tourists as a post-purchase attitude.
According to statistics, majority of Chinese tourists who buy fashion products are women. The survey is conducted on 550 women in the age group between 20 and 60 years who have visited Seoul before, using an online panel of respondents sampled by an international survey firm. 530 questionnaires are analyzed, with the remaining responses determined to be incomplete. For the demographic characteristics of the sample group, the average age is 33.5 years old, with 201 in their 20s (37.9%), 190 in their 30s (35.8%), 107 in their 40s (20.2%), and 32 in or over their 50s (6.0%). As for the average household income, RMB 10,000 to 20,000 is the most frequent (210 or 39.6%). For residential areas, Hua Dong (East China) is the most frequent (207 or 39.1%). Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling by AMOS 20.0.
Respondents were asked to recall most impressive fashion product that they bought in Korea during their visit, and to answer whether it was planned or unplanned purchase.This study also attempts to measure the emotions they had during the purchase in order to understand differences in attitude toward the purchased products. Although emotions cannot persist over time, previous studies have measured emotions during consumption to evaluate the situation. The study categorizes respondents according to their purchasing power into heavy and light buyers to determine the moderating effects of purchase amount. In the literature, purchasing power is described in terms of the number of purchase and purchase amount. Based on previous studies on purchasing power, consumers can be categorized as heavy or light buyers. This study focuses on purchase amount in the context of tourism shopping.
The results find that planned purchases tend to deliver positive emotions, which in turn enhances product satisfaction. Unplanned purchases, positive shopping emotions have positive impact on their attitude toward purchased products. Interestingly, unplanned purchases have negative direct impact on the product attitude without the mediating role of positive shopping emotions, showing the importance of positive emotions that consumers feel while shopping
When it comes to the impact of purchasing power, the effect of unplanned purchases of light buyers on shopping emotions or product attitude was not significant. Only planned purchases trigger positive emotions, many of which induced positive impact on product satisfaction. For heavy buyers, on the other hand, even unplanned purchases have positive impact on their product satisfaction when positive shopping emotions are developed. This study is differentiated from previous studies in that it deals with how purchase types (planned vs. unplanned) affect shopping emotions and post-purchase product attitude of Chinese tourists who account for the significant share of the Korean tour industry. It is also notable that this study groups tourists by their purchasing power and identifies the impact of their purchasing power, considering the fact that tourists are increasingly influencing the domestic consumption market. The Korean government and companies may tap into the results of this study to provide better environments to trigger positive shopping emotions to tourists. However, it should be considered that the subject of this study is limited to Chinese female tourists, which should be complemented by future studies.

• Dongseob Kim(Seoul National University)
• Kiyong Kwon(Seoul National University)
• Ha Kyung Lee(Seoul National University)
• Joo Young Lee(Seoul National University)
• Ju Yeun Jang(Seoul National University)
• Ho Jung Choo(Seoul National University)