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Night market experience and image of temporary residents and foreign visitors
Su-Hsin Lee
Graduate Institute of Landscape and Recreation, Feng-Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan and University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

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Shu-Chen Chang
Graduate Institute of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Feng-Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan

Jing-Shoung Hou
National Formosa University, Yunlin, Taiwan and Department of Landscape Architecture, Tung-Hai University, Taichung, Taiwan, and

Chung-Hsien Lin
Feng-Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose The paper aims to differentiate the differences of both night market experience and image between temporary residents and foreign visitors in Taiwan and to explore the relationship between experience and image. Design/methodology/approach Night market experiences comprise the dimensions of Schmitts experiential marketing theory and night market image is analyzed by exploratory factor analysis. This research probes the socio-demographics differences of experience and image between temporary residents and foreign visitors. Canonical analysis explores the experience-image relationships. Findings Some socio-demographics have relativity differences in night market experiences and images. Visitors have stronger thinking experience than temporary residents. Temporary residents have stronger image in atmosphere, while foreign visitors have general stronger images than temporary residents. Canonical analysis shows that visitors have stronger relationships between experience and image than temporary residents. Practical implications Marketing organizations must develop marketing strategies specic to cultural background and the length of residence of its specic visitors. Originality/value The paper provides the evidence showing that familiarity and novelty-seeking would be of particular importance to examine whether experience and image are equally applicable to the various foreign visitors. Keywords Taiwan, Retail marketing, Shopping centres, Individual perception, Tourism Paper type Research paper
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research Vol. 2 No. 3, 2008 pp. 217-233 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1750-6182 DOI 10.1108/17506180810891591

The authors thank the Taiwan National Science Council for providing the research funding to carry out this research (NSC-95-2415-H-035-002-SSS).

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Introduction Owing to the globalization of recent years, international tourism and business have become a universal phenomenon. The exchanges of informational, economic, and population ows inuence the formation of culture and can lead to homogenization and cultural adaptation (Hughes, 1995). Tourists from different cultural backgrounds exhibit different behavior patterns such as trip arrangement, recreation, shopping activities and expenditure, once they have arrived at their destinations (Yuksel, 2004). International tourists often shed the culture of their home environments, and become more tolerant, and less critical to the visited culture. Residents, being in their living country, may not shed their home culture to the extent that international visitors can, and hence residents and international visitors differed in their evaluation of services and shopping item preferences (Gudykunst and Hammer, 1988; Yuksel, 2004; Boom et al., 2005). Recently, there are increasing numbers of temporary residents, permanent residents, and business residents, who move from overseas countries to Taiwan. Taiwanese night markets are street markets operating at night, mainly in urban or suburban areas that generally tend to have more leisurely strolling, shopping, and eating areas than more businesslike day markets. The night market is one of the most popular shopping options in Taiwan, with unique consumption activities, displays, products, and bargain prices. The night market reects the Taiwanese history, society, and economics; it provides a true experience of modern Taiwanese nightlife. Most night markets offer entertainments, bargains, and local customs; many sell varieties of traditional products, such as casual clothes, fruit, exotic snacks, and novelty items. The markets offer an insight to a culture that is not very apparent during typical days (Lee et al., 2005). Taiwan government and public have been supporting many local Taiwanese night markets to market them and to transform them into international tourism night markets. According to Taiwan Tourism Bureau (2006), the main tourism attractions of Taiwan are food and natural scenery, followed by shopping, night markets, and historical sites. The most popular visiting destinations are night markets (59 percent), followed by the Taipei 101 building (36 percent), and the National Palace Museum (33 percent). This survey indicates that night markets represent an important international consumption activity in Taiwan. Previous studies show the main attraction factors for local Taiwanese are: low prices, variety of products, and neighborhood location (Lee et al., 2005). For international tourists, novelty-seeking, exercising and experiencing local culture and customs are the major motives to visit tourist night markets (Hsieh and Chang, 2004). A survey of Hong Kong tourists shows their main activities when visiting Taiwan are eating out, everyday shopping, novelty-seeking, and entertainment (Hsieh and Chang, 2004). These activities overlap with the activities of tourist night market, which suggests that understanding tourists behavior when visiting night markets can increase Taiwans tourism and create a comfortable shopping environment. Shoppers with different cultural backgrounds differ in their shopping preferences (Mak et al., 1998; Pizam and Jeong, 1996). Temporary residents retain the culture of their original country but Taiwanese culture also inuences them, which might result in a mixture of culture and shopping preferences. However, the role of cultural adaptation in determining behavior has not been given much attention in tourism research, and there is relatively less study on the shopping behavior of culturally

adapted foreigners in Taiwan. Hence, this research is to determine the role of cultural adaptation on Taiwanese night market shopping behavior. Although past literature suggests experience is related to complex images, the complex images of on-site experiences can be dissimilar among people (Chon, 1991; Selby and Morgan, 1996). Therefore, this study investigates the difference of relationship between experience and complex image. This study compares temporary residents and foreign visitors experiences of Taiwanese night markets. The purposes of this study are: . to identify the dimensions of Taiwanese night markets image; . to explore the differences in the night market experience and image with regard to foreigners socio-demographics; and . to compare the experience-image relationships of temporary residents with those of foreign visitors. Literature review Cultural adaptation of tourists When traveling abroad, tourists must face foreign cultures, different social norms, languages, cultural life styles, racial/cultural recognition and many more cultural differences that may lead to problems of intercultural adaptation and cross-cultural adaptation. Kim (1979) divides cross-culture adaptation researches into two types: immigrant research and temporary resident research. Foreigner means stranger in the host country. Temporary residents mean strangers in host country including temporary or short-term residents, immigrants, and visitors. Foreign tourists are strangers in the host country with visit duration under three month and only require a travel visa. Past research shows differences in the behavior of cross-cultural tourists (Gudykunst and Hammer, 1988). Nationalities cultures have stronger moderating effects on tourist behavior than tourist culture, that is, nationality has the most inuence on tourist behavior (Pizam and Jeong, 1996; Bonn et al., 2005). When they have immigrated or resided for a long-period overseas, they often adapt to the new culture or nationality. Residential time and experience can affect their image when they are in a familiar space. However, there is limited research determining the level of adaptation of foreign residents, and no research on their shopping preferences and behavior in comparison with local culture slightly inuence on foreign tourists. Therefore, this research divides foreigners into two categories according to the durations of their visiting periods. One category is foreigners who live in Taiwan over three months, another is those who visit Taiwan and stay for less than three months. Experience of night market In night markets entrepreneurs induce various purchase behaviors and interaction behaviors in tourists, therefore the night market experience is one of the most important experiencing products. Experience refers to subjective matters; a night market experience is a produced sense, a psychological event that comes from an individuals participation experience (Addis and Holbrook, 2001; Joy and Sherry, 2003). Schmitt (1999) advocates a notion of experience as individual response to certain stimuli induced by events. Pine and Gilmore (1999) working from the perspective of evolutionary economic development, regard experience as a new economic product and

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dene experience as a conscious pleasure product when individuals mood, physical strength, intelligence and spirit achieve a certain standard. Holbrook (2000) believes when we enter the era of experiential economy, the marketing focus will shift from product performance and benet to experiences, entertainment, exhibitionism, and evangelizing development. Consumers expenditure demand gradually includes more fantasy, feelings and fun. Numerous typologies have been proposed to account for possible similarities and differences between experiences (Schmitt, 1999; Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Addis and Holbrook, 2001). Pine and Gilmore (1999) describe four types of pleasurable experiences according to consumers connections to and levels of participation in experiences labeled escapist, educational, entertainment, and aesthetic. Schmitt (1999), on the other hand, proposes ve experience modules that describe consumers involvement with experiences labeled sense, feel, think, relate, and act. Sense experience includes the senses of hearing, vision, smell, taste and touch are ve kinds of physiologically determined sensory experiences. Sensory marketing provides joy, excitement, and a satised mood. Questionnaire entries for sense experience are: . the experience engages my senses; . the experience lacks sensory appeal; and . the experience is perceptually interesting. Feel experience is the consumers intrinsic emotion and mood, the intense emotion arising as the result of contact and interaction. Feel experience may take diverse forms; its scope ranges from temperate to intense mood. The survey statements are: . the experience tries to put me in a certain mood; . the experience makes me respond in an emotional manner; and . the experience does not try to appeal to feelings. Think experience stimulus focuses and utilizes the intelligence of the consumer to create cognition of the experience. By applying excitements and stimulation, this sort of experience draws the consumers focused attention. The corresponding questionnaire entries are: . the experience tries to intrigue me; . the experience stimulates my curiosity; and . the experience does not try to appeal to my creative thinking. Finally, act experience is to create unique bodily experience. The experience can be similar to or different from customer experience of other stimuli. Such other stimuli can include long-term behavior patterns, the life state of the customer, and interactions with other people. The relevant questionnaire entries are: . the experience tries to make me think about my lifestyle; . the experience reminds me of activities I can do; and . the experience does not try to make me think about actions and behaviors. Related experience: it includes sense, feel, think and act marketing. Related marketing develops from the consumers individual personality, personal sentiments, and

connections with individual experience and culture. Questionnaire queries for this topic are: . the experience tries to get me to think about relationships; . I can relate to other people through this experience; and . the experience does not try to remind me of social rules and arrangements. Image of night market Potential visitors use various destination information/attributes to construct their nmez and Sirakaya, destination image. According to previous research (Pike, 2002; So 2002; Bonn et al., 2005; OLeary and Deegan, 2005), the importance of image for a place has emphasized. After strolling in night markets, people will form cognitive images of the night market. The cognitive evaluation refers to subjective belief or knowledge about destination attributes, while affective evaluation refers to feeling about the destination itself (Gartner, 1993; Baloglu and McCleary, 1999). Thus, both cognitive and affective evaluations form the overall image of a destination. Echtner and Ritchie (1991, 1993) propose that image is multidimensional and comprises both symbolic and tangible features. Image describes fragmented stimulation attributes or consciousness as inuenced by individual characteristics. Image also describes a person stimulating an overall impression due to consciousness. Although conveying a consistent image may be benecial for marketing implementation, a single image may have different connotations in different cultures (Hofstede, 1980) and, consequently, will lessen marketing effectiveness (MacKey and Fesenmaier, 1997). Therefore, a night market physical and mental features are important in shaping tourists image of that night market. Embacher and Buttle (1989) point out when people refer to certain specic nations or to local areas, locality often has association with local climate, culture, natural environment and even facilities and equipment. This concept is called destination image; traveling brings new ideas, manners and impressions to tourists by means of destination image. Nasar (1998) mentions that images are the relationship between human and environmental reciprocity; image is the inuence they exert on each other. Simon (1998) proposes an environmental psychology approach to study urban retail areas images, which include sight impressions, customer service, convenience, and prices. But nowadays studies lack discussion of night market experience and image. Gunn (1988) proposes the image formation has two stages, organic image and induced image. The rst stage of image formation mainly consists of information primarily gathered as follows: from non-commercial traveling resources; from other people who rephrase their own words; or from correlation reports, such as media and common media (newspaper, magazine, television and so on), relatives, friend, education programs, etc. The second stage is gathering information from commercial resources, or from other sightseeing traveling directly. This information from traveling handbook and travel agency has effects on the image. Fakeye and Crompton (1991) state when visitors are experiencing the traveling destination they produce the complex image. Therefore, a complex image synthesizes images with the previous two stages, and then nally forms an overall image. The night market is one of the most important places where foreigners come to travel or do leisure consumption in Taiwan, but at present, there is no systematic research regarding foreigners perceptions of the

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night market and their experiences. This research aims to research both temporary residents and foreign tourists points of view concerning night market experiences and image differences. Method Data collection The subject of this research is the population of all foreigners who are potential night market customers. According to the Taiwan Tourism Bureau (2006), the top three origin points of visitors to Taiwan in 2005 were Japan, Hong Kong and Macao, and the USA. For foreign residents of Taiwan, according to the National Immigration Agency Ministry of Interior, 2006, Vietnamese, Thai, and Filipino are the top three nationalities of foreign residents living in Taiwan. Outside Southeast Asia countries, the highest number of foreign residents is from Japan, followed by America and Canada. Hence, the questionnaire is prepared in three languages: Chinese, Japanese, and English. We omit other languages since most Vietnamese, Thai, and Filipino persons have English training. This research aims to research those of Taiwan foreigners who have experience of Taiwan night markets. The sample is on the basis that the subject agrees the interview and has visited Taiwan night market. We collected data between 10 March 2006 and 7 April 2007, from 9 am to 8 pm in Taiwan National Airport departure lobbies. We collected 689 completed questionnaires. Owing to missing data of 68 questionnaires, this results in a total of 626 usable questionnaires, a response rate of 94.1 percent. Instrument The questionnaire includes questions regarding socio-demographics of the foreign visitors (gender, age, marriage status, educational level, occupation, and visit or residential duration in Taiwan). Night market images include 31 items in ve dimensions of local characteristics, public facilities, representation, attraction, and price bargain using questions from a series researches (Echtner and Ritchie, 1991, 1993; Simon, 1998). Night market experiences comprise the dimensions of Schmitts (1999) research, which include sense experience, feel experience, think experience, act experience, and related experience. There are three questions for each dimension in total of 15 questions. Both experience and image items are ve-point Likert-type scales, ranging from strongly disagree 1 to strongly agree 5. Descriptive univariate analyses, such as means and standard deviations, describe the prole of the sample. We utilize one-way ANOVA and t-test to examine the differences in the night market experience and image with regard to foreigners socio-demographics. Factor analysis, reliability analysis and canonical analysis explore the relationships between experience factors and image factors. Results Sample description As seen in Table I, the study sample has 293 (46.8 percent) foreign residents, and 333 (53.2 percent) foreign visitors. About 273 subjects are from Southeast Asia (43.6 percent), 166 subjects from Japan (26.5 percent), 187 subjects from Europe and America (29.9 percent). The total sample has 320 (51.1 percent) males and 306 (48.9 percent) females. About 440 are

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Social background 141 152 42 188 48 9 6 245 48 6 42 64 127 38 16 69 5 3 7 203 5 84 39 170 28.7 13.3 58.0 103 127 103 23.5 1.7 1.0 2.4 69.3 1.7 201 23 2 15 69 16 60.4 6.9 0.6 4.5 20.7 4.8 30.9 38.1 30.9 2.0 14.3 21.8 43.3 13.0 5.5 13 70 46 151 40 13 3.9 21.0 13.8 45.3 12.0 3.9 83.6 16.4 195 138 58.6 41.4 440 186 19 112 110 278 78 29 270 28 5 22 272 21 187 166 273 14.3 64.2 16.4 3.1 2.0 29 130 80 47 47 8.7 39.0 24.0 14.1 14.1 71 318 128 56 53 48.1 51.9 179 154 53.8 46.2 320 306 51.1 48.9 11.3 50.8 20.4 8.9 8.5 70.3 29.7 3.0 17.9 17.6 44.4 12.5 4.6 43.1 4.5 0.8 3.5 43.5 3.3 29.9 26.5 43.6

Temporary resident (293) Number of people Percentage

Foreign tourist (333) Number of people Percentage

Total (626) Number of people Percentage

Gender Male Female Age Under 20 21-30 31-40 41-50 Above 51 Marriage status Single Married Education level Junior high school High school College University degree Master degree PhD degree Occupation Full time House keeping Volunteer Casual and part time Student None Country of origin Europe and America Japan Southeast Asia

Note: Total of 626 valid survey

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Table I. Socio-demographics of surveyed temporary resident and foreign tourists

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single (70.3 percent), and 186 are married (29.7 percent). Most respondents are between the ages of 21-30 and 31-40 (totaling 71.2 percent). The education level of the respondents has the most distribution in university or college level, and graduate educated (62.0 percent of the total sample). Most occupations are full-employment with 270 respondents (43.1 percent of the total sample) and students with 272 subjects (43.5 percent). Analysis of night market experience with socio-demographics The nding results show that educational level, occupation, and marriage status have no signicant differences in experience, the other variables such as gender, age, type (foreign resident or foreign tourist), and country of origin, has relativity differences to their night market experiences (Table II). Females have stronger values in think dimension than males do. The age has effects on think, act, and related experiences. The 31-40 years group has stronger experience of think than groups with other age values. The younger groups (under 20 and 21-30 years) put more importance on experience of act and related than older groups. There is interaction between type and country of origin on sense experience. Comparing those who are visiting with those residing in Taiwan, we nd the foreign visitors have higher value on think experience than foreign residents. The country of origin has main effect on the feel, act and related experiences. Europe and America subjects put less importance on the feel, act and related dimensions than Japanese and Southeast Asian. Japanese put more importance on feel dimension. Southeast Asian has stronger value on act and related experiences, which might because there is more Southeast Asians working as foreign laborers in Taiwan and they have stronger act and related experience along with staying time. Analysis of night market image with socio-demographics The examination of the dimensional structure of night market image is to use exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Using varimax rotation, the extraction of factors with eigenvalues is greater than 1.0. Items keep in the respective factors when their factor loading is greater than 0.30 (Kim and Mueller, 1978). Using Cronbach a coefcients to evaluate the internal consistency of underlying factors, generally, acceptable values of Cronbach a coefcients is 0.70 and above. However, if a factor has
Socio-demographics Variables Gender (F-value) Age (F-value) Types (F-value) Temporary residents Foreign visitors Country of origin (F-value) Europe and America Japan Southeast Asia Scheffe test Dimensions of the night market experience Feel Think Act 2.33 1.90 0.38 3.24 3.27 4.46 * 3.15 3.31 3.30 (1,2)(1,3) 8.35 * 2.43 * 4.36 * 3.23 3.34 2.12 3.21 3.31 3.33 0.023 3.87 * * 0.51 2.93 2.97 4.88 * 2.83 2.94 3.03 (1,3)

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Sense 2.77 1.52 0.93 3.30 3.35 1.84 3.30 3.40 3.29

Related 1.03 2.99 * 0.197 3.03 3.06 7.22 * * 2.90 3.07 3.13 (1,2)(1,3)

Table II. Relationship of night market experience and socio-demographics

Notes: Signicant at levels *0.05, * *0.01 and * * *0.001, respectively. Means were derived from a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1-strongly disagrees to 5-strongly agree

a reduced number of items (e.g. six or less), 0.60 and above may be acceptable (Cortina, 1993). As from Table III, all factors have Cronbach a values over 0.60 suggesting acceptable levels of internal consistency for every scale. The nal results of the EFA indicate eight image factors accounting for 61.7 percent of the variance explained. The factors are: food and local specialty, atmosphere, public facility, environment, products, price, bargain, and reputation (Table III). The subjects put the highest image value in reputation, followed by local food and specialty, and public facility, which exhibit they are the most important complex images of Taiwan night market. The results of different image in socio-demographics show that while gender has no signicant differences in image dimensions, the other variables such as marriage status, educational level, age, occupation, staying type, and country of origin have signicant differences to night market image (Table IV). Marriage status is signicantly related to the image of public facility, and environment. Single subjects have more positive image of public facility and environment than married subjects. Educational level has signicant difference in the image of local food and specialty and atmosphere. The subjects with junior high school level place higher value than other groups. Public facility, environment and price have signicant differences relative to the age variable. Subjects with age under 20 and 21-30 have more positive image of public facility, environment than other groups, while subjects with age 31-40 and 41-50 thought price are reasonable than other age level groups. Atmosphere, public facility, environment, and price have signicant differences in occupation. Student and housekeeping put lower image on atmosphere and price than other groups. But student and part-time workers place higher image value in public facility and environment than other groups. Temporary residents have stronger image ratings in atmosphere than foreign tourists, while foreign tourists have stronger local food and specialty, public facility, environment and reputation image ratings than temporary residents. Foreign tourists have general stronger image except atmosphere than temporary residents. Country of origin shows signicant difference in dimensions of local food and specialty, atmosphere, public facility, environment, price, bargain, and reputation. Europeans and Americans have stronger image ratings for local food and specialty, atmosphere, price, bargain, and reputation than Japanese and Southeast Asians. But Europeans and Americans put less values on public facility and environment than Japanese and Southeast Asians do, which means Europeans and Americans have general stronger image excluding public facility and environment quality. Canonical correlation analysis of experience and image This study conducts canonical correlation analysis to conrm possible relationships between night market experience and night market image for temporary residents and foreign visitors separately. A discussion then compares the differences between the two models. Canonical analysis produces two functions for temporary residents. Only function 1 scores signicantly and its redundancy index is higher than 5 percent. The canonical correlation of function 1 is 0.47 (R 2 0.22) and is signicant at 0.001 level. Its redundancy index on experience is 29.7 percent and image is 32.1 percent (Figure 1). Judging from the result of canonical loadings relates to the canonical factor for experience, sense (0.90), feel (0.51), and think (0.61) signicantly correlate to the factor.

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Observed variables 21.48 0.79 0.74 0.66 0.63 32.02 0.71 0.71 0.63 0.55 0.55 0.43 39.34 0.80 0.78 0.68 0.52 44.77 0.73 0.73 0.65 0.59 49.74 0.79 0.69 0.62 54.120 0.82 0.73 58.09 0.80 0.74 0.41 61.7 0.82 0.82 1.02 1.11 1.226 1.39 1.52 2.05 2.95 6.01

Local food and specialty There are many interesting products Many alternative choices of commodities There are many famous local snacks There are various foods and drinks Atmosphere The music is attractive The games and performances are novel Lighting and shop billboards are attractive Vendors are friendly and courteous The bawl selling and peddling is very special I can access people and feel the mirthful atmosphere Public facilitya It lacks clear sign and indicates board Car parks are not easy to nd Walking paths are too narrow It lacks adequate public facilities Environmenta The environment is dirty Robbery problem causes my worry security I feel uncomfortable with too crowded Food is unsanitary Products The product quality is satisfactory Shops sell fashionable products Many local characteristic products Price Prices are fair and reasonable Products are good value relative to the price Bargain I can enjoy the fun of price negotiating Many special discount activities Many delicious foods from different countries Reputation Taiwan night market is well-know Night market is the representative feature of Taiwan

Note: aVariable was recoded

Table III. Factor analysis of night image

Mean SD Factor loading Variance (percent) Eigen value Composite reliability 0.80 0.73 0.71 0.66 0.74 0.73 0.61 3.6 3.5 3.4 3.8 3.9 3.3 3.3 3.3 3.2 3.3 3.1 3.7 3.6 3.6 3.6 3.7 3.6 3.3 3.4 3.1 3.4 3.3 3.5 3.2 3.6 3.7 3.4 3.4 3.5 3.2 3.3 3.1 3.2 3.9 3.8 4.0 0.70 0.86 0.91 0.89 0.88 0.59 0.94 0.87 0.94 0.89 0.85 0.95 0.71 0.97 0.99 0.97 0.96 0.66 0.98 0.91 0.93 0.89 0.70 0.92 0.85 0.83 0.77 0.86 0.88 0.68 0.91 0.86 0.95 0.85 0.98 0.92 0.77

Socio-demographics variables Factor 1 0.147 2.44 * 1.29 1.19 20.54 * * * 3.52 3.77 13.12 * * * 3.83 3.45 3.61 (1, 2)(1, 3) 0.140 0.88 1.15 1.03 0.21 3.45 3.47 0.76 3.49 3.40 3.47 2.67 0.68 2.66 * 2.48 * 0.017 3.42 3.43 9.06 * * * 3.61 3.42 3.30 (1, 3) 0.94 2.68 * 1.32 8.42 * * * 13.29 * * * 3.38 3.21 4.64 * 3.41 3.29 3.24 (1, 3) 5.57 * 0.58 3.17 * 2.94 * 9.92 * * 3.54 3.72 16.96 * * * 3.38 3.76 3.70 (1,2)(1,3) 4.00 * 1.56 6.46 * * * 8.82 * * * 25.83 * * * 3.18 3.44 6.68 * * 3.18 3.26 3.40 (1,3) Factor 2

Dimensions of the night market image Factor 3 Factor 4 Factor 5 Factor 6

Factor 7 0.50 1.04 1.78 0.55 2.65 3.17 3.26 7.10 * * 3.37 3.13 3.16 (1,2)(1,3)

Factor 8 0.013 1.19 1.90 1.45 11.44 * * 3.82 4.05 13.12 * * * 3.83 3.45 3.61 (1,2)(1,3)

Marriage status Education level Age Occupation Staying type Temporary residents (181) Foreign visitors (189) Country of origin Europe and America (126) Japan (120) Southeast Asia (124) Scheffe test

Notes: Signicant at levels *0.05, * *0.01 and * * *0.001, respectively. Factor 1: local food and specialty; Factor 2: atmosphere; Factor 3: public facility; Factor 4: environment; Factor 5: product; Factor 6: price; Factor 7: bargain; Factor 8: reputation

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Table IV. Relationship of night market image and socio-demographics

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0.83 Sense 0.90 0.51 r = 0.47 R2 = 0.22 0.73

Food & products Atmosphere

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Feel Think Action 0.61 0.12 Experience RI = 0.321 Image RI = 0.297

0.14 Public facility 0.03 0.74 Products 0.50 0.16 0.53 Price Bargain 0.49 Reputation Environment

Related

Figure 1. Canonical function of experience and image for foreign residents

The canonical loadings of local food and specialty (0.83), atmosphere (0.73), products (0.74), price (0.50), bargain (0.53), and reputation (0.49) signicantly correlate to the image canonical factor. The canonical dimension indicates that the temporary residents who have stronger sense, feel, and think experiences also have stronger images of local food and specialty, atmosphere, products, price, bargain, and reputation for Taiwan night markets. The result from foreign visitors shows that there are two functions. Only function 1 scores signicantly and its redundancy index is higher than 5 percent. The canonical correlation of function 1 is 0.53 (R 2 0.28) and is signicant at the 0.001 level. Its redundancy index on experience is 33.4 percent and its redundancy index on image is 47.2 percent (Figure 2). From the result of canonical loadings, it is found that sense (0.85), feel (0.71), think (0.92), action (0.38), and related (0.38) signicantly correlate to the experience canonical factor. The canonical loadings of local food and specialty (0.83), atmosphere (0.52), public facility (0.36), products (0.82), price (0.64), bargain (0.52), and reputation (0.47) signicantly correlate to the image canonical factor. The function between these two sets of variables is on the basis of the composition of foreign visitors who have experiences of sense, feel, and think, which have association with the local food and specialty, atmosphere, public facility, products, price, bargain, and reputation. Discussion and conclusion The purpose of this study is to investigate how the socio-demographics of foreign temporary residents and visitors as related to their images and experiences of Taiwanese night markets. It also examines the relationships of experience and image and the differences in the relative importance of components for each construct regarding temporary foreign residents and foreign tourists. The results suggest that gender, age, staying type, and country of origin have inuence on foreigners night

Food & products 0.83 Atmosphere 0.52 0.71 Feel 0.92 Think 0.38 RI = 0.33 Action 0.38 Related 0.47 Bargain 0.52 Price RI = 0.47 0.358 Experience Image 0.12 0.82 0.64 Products Environment Public facility

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Sense 0.85

r = 0.53 R2 = 0.28

Reputation

Figure 2. Canonical function of experience and image for foreign visitors

market experience. Foreigners marriage status, education level, age, occupation, staying type, and country of origin also have relativity differences to their night market image. The nding supports the notion that cultural background and familiarity with a host culture will affect foreigners experience (Pizam and Jeong, 1996; Arnold and Reynolds, 2003; Yuksel, 2004) and image (Embacher and Buttle, 1989; Baloglu and McCleary, 1999; Bonn et al., 2005; OLeary and Deegan, 2005) of night market. Think experience has greater difference than other four experiences in socio-demographics. That shows that psychological difference is the main difference between foreigners of different age groups, genders, and staying type. According to Schmitt (1999) the think experience stimulates curiosity and appeal to the customers creative thinking. Female, and middle age and visitors would have stronger thinking experience than other experiences such as sense and feel. The results also show that the younger subjects have stronger values in act and related experience than elders did. Based on Schmitts (1999) act and related experiences reect that younger persons have stronger unique bodily experience and relationship experience with others. Regarding to visiting or residing in Taiwan, we nd the foreign visitors have higher value on think experience than foreign residents. Perhaps, the longer foreign residents have stayed in Taiwan, the less special or exciting night markets are for them, and hence they have less thinking experience than foreign visitors. For foreign visitors who have little experience in visiting night markets, the experience will trigger their thinking mechanism, and increasing information intakes. The feel, act, and related experiences are important variables regarding to country of origin (nationality). European and American have lowered these three experiences than Japanese and

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Southeast Asian, which might be due to their cultural backgrounds (Pizam and Jeong, 1996; Bonn et al., 2005). Japanese and Southeast Asian have similar oriental background with Taiwanese; they might more familiar with night market. This result also supports with individuals participation experience of Pine and Gilmore (1999) and Joy and Sherry (2003). Results show that temporary foreign residents have stronger image values in atmosphere than foreign tourists, while foreign visitors have stronger numbers in local food and specialty, public facility, environment, and reputation image than temporary residents. This may be the effect of the length of residence time in Taiwan. Yuksels (2004) study shows that domestic visitors are more critical and having less tolerant to rotten facility and service than foreign visitors do. In this study, foreign residents have stayed in Taiwan for a longer period and adopt similar values to those of the locals, and hence being more critical on qualities such as local food, specialty, public facility, environment, and reputation. To compare the nationality, Europeans and Americans with little experience of night markets picture visiting night markets as a unique experience, and hence they have stronger image on local food, specialty, atmosphere, price, bargain, and reputation. But Europeans and Americans who have more broad space and cleaner living environment in their country and hence being more critical on qualities such as public facility and environment. The results suggest that experience is indeed related to image and such a relationship is reasonably tting for temporary residents and foreign tourists. These ndings support our hypothesis that cross-cultural effectiveness may explore the relationship of place experience related to its generalized images. However, the ndings also reveal that earlier studies might have overlooked the complexity of the experience-image relationship. In this study, the effect of components on experience and image depend on temporary residents and tourists perceptions. According to the ndings, temporary residents place higher values on sense, feel, and think experience of a night market, which relate to local food/specialty, atmosphere, products, price, bargain, and reputation. The foreign visitor model shows that ve experience dimensions are all positively related with seven image dimensions except environment. The model of foreign visitor explains stronger variance than foreign residents; this might be due to the foreign residents have longer time lived in Taiwan. Their behaviors and perceptions of night market are more like domestic visitors who have different relationships between components of experience and image of night markets compared to foreign visitors. For example, they are more familiar with Taiwan environment and public facility situation which have no effect on night market experiences. According to Schmitt (1999), act experience relates to personal lifestyle, actions and behaviors. Related experience connects to specic culture or signicant others. The foreign visitors have certain motivation to visit other countries may cause stronger feelings or experiences. This may be affected by more complex images than organic and induced image (Gunn, 1988; Fakeye and Crompton, 1991; Echtner and Ritchie, 1991, 1993). However, the level of cultural adaptation of foreign residents adapting to Taiwanese night markets is hard to measure. Night markets are also more popular in Southeast Asian countries, than in Japan, hence Southeast Asians might accept and adapt to night market culture faster or easier than Japanese, and even Japanese might adapt more than Europeans and Americans. Their valuations of night markets and

shopping preferences will be more similar to local Taiwanese valuations. The differences among different countries or geographical regions need further study. Therefore, future efforts to understand cross-cultural behavior should consider the multidimensionality of place experience and image as well as their varying levels of importance to residents and visitors. The results of this research may help Taiwan government and entrepreneurs to develop an international promotion strategy targeted at target markets (Assael, 1984). For example, the most important images are local food and specialty, products, and price which means night markets that can offer characteristically local products, fashionable products, diverse food and drink, low-price products, and distinctively avored international foods will attract international visitors. Taiwan Tourism Bureau may promote Taiwanese foods and beverages to overseas tourists by using think, sense, and feel experiential marketing method, or may segment visitors by socio-demographics and geographic variables. Some benets may accrue from promotion of factors such as Taiwans reputation, special local experience, and public facility, but the primary benet will arise from strengthening the image of night markets as representative of Taiwans attractions.
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Yuksel, A. (2004), Shopping experience evaluation: a case of domestic and international visitors, Tourism Management, Vol. 25, pp. 751-9. Further reading Hsu, C.H.C., Wolfe, K. and Kang, S.K. (2004), Image assessment for a destination with limited comparative advantages, Tourism Management, Vol. 25, pp. 121-6. Hunt, J.D. (1975), Image as a factor in tourism development, Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 1-7. Corresponding author Su-Hsin Lee can be contacted at: shlee@fcu.edu.tw

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