| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄餐旅大學 === 運輸與休閒服務規劃碩士學位學程 === 104 === As tourism industry grows significantly in recent years, international visitors and local residents had more frequent interaction than the past. Based on Tourism Bureau (Ministry of Transportation and communications, Republic of China) statistics, the number of Free Independent Travelers (FIT) increased year by year, which means Taiwanese tourists went abroad preferred flexible and autonomous way. Chen (2008) indicates that individuals who travel alone internationally or study in the short term overseas exhibit more intercultural sensitivity than those who have no international travel experiences or travel overseas with travel agents. Therefore, this study aims to explore the FIT from different countries has different Intercultural Sensitivity (IS) while traveling to different country destination, accumulating variety travel experiences, and facing different culture learning.
This research focuses on different IS level of FIT as the research target, collecting the FIT samples by snowball sampling to complete the questionnaire survey from Taiwan, China and Malaysia. This research collects in total of 353 valid smamles. The IS profile includes four dimensions: Respect for Cultural Differences, Interaction Confidence, Interaction Attitude, and Interaction Engagement & Attentiveness. Statistical Analysis t-test and One-way ANOVA showed three countries have high score on IS. Malaysia FITs have high score on Respect for Cultural Differences ; Taiwanness have high score on Interaction Confidence, Interaction Attitude, and Interaction Engagement & Attentiveness. Chinese are on the average. This research analysis presents that IS has a significant relationship with travel experience an language ability. Defining tourists whom have eminent IS are :traveling a lot, frequently abroad , higher travel duration, impressive language skills and married.
Since the international travelers’ IS are seldom studied from the previous literatures, it calls for the need for more empirical researchers on this issue. At last, the suggestions for prospective reaerch are comparing IS differences between Eastern and Western country; increasing more travelers psychological variables；comparing the difference with Intercultural Sensitivity Scale.
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