Eastern and Western tourists' luxury value perceptions and needs for specific attributes of an online presence for exotic leather goods

Abstract

The study investigated Eastern and Western tourists’ luxury value perceptions regarding exotic leather products, the e-luxe value perceptions that drive their preference for specific attributes of an exotic leather product’s social media presence and the influence this has on their purchasing intent. A survey was conducted that focused on American and Chinese luxury consumers and was facilitated by an international independent company, Qualtrics. Qualtrics assisted with collecting the data by means of a non-probability convenient sampling method. Online questionnaires were distributed to consumers on their data basis and 1043 usable questionnaires were collected, of which 525 were from Chinese respondents (translated to Cantonese and Mandarin) and 518 were from American respondents. The statistical analysis that was conducted consisted of descriptive statistics, factor analysis, Levene’s test of equality of variance and Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient. The demographic and consumer behaviour findings assisted in better understanding the Eastern and Western tourist. The study’s findings showed that almost all of the respondents were aware that South Africa is known for its exotic crocodile and ostrich leather. Most of the respondents fell in the millennial age group. The most common type of purchase made by Americans were accessories for themselves, while the Chinese rather purchased souvenirs on their trips. Chinese respondents mostly used Blogs, while Americans preferred to use Facebook, to gain information. This study also showed that the luxury value perceptions might be different between cultural groups. Both the groups conceptualised their luxury value perceptions completely different to what previous literature states. Two luxury value perceptions could be identified for the American respondents, namely “Me” value and Financial value, while there were three luxury value perceptions for the Chinese respondents, namely “Pleasure” value, Social value and Financial value. This difference in the luxury value perceptions was also evident in the respondent’s e-luxe value perceptions. The self-developed scale based on the values of e-luxe model showed that both groups also conceptualised their e-luxe values differently. The two e-luxe value perceptions identified for the Americans were “American Experience” e-luxe value and “Perceived Me” e-luxe value. The two e-luxe values that could be identified for the Chinese respondents were “Chinese Experience” and “Price”. The study also found that both the groups expressed very strong purchasing intentions for exotic leather products with no significant difference between the two groups. The results also showed significantly strong positive correlations between American respondents’ “Me” and Chinese respondents’ “Pleasure” luxury value perceptions, and their purchasing intent. Significantly strong positive correlations were also seen between American respondents’ “American Experience” and Chinese respondents’ “Chinese Experience” luxury value perceptions, and their purchasing intent. This serves as a guide to South African and international retailers and marketers to position their exotic leather products in such a way that it communicates important luxury values to international tourists and thereby influences their purchasing intent in a positive way.