CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Backround Study and Thesis
Objectives China is an important market for the tourism industry. The economic boom experienced inChina in the past years, a mix between modem cities and natural sights，as well as a long andrich history makes this country one of the most popular touristic destinations, according tothe World Bank and the United Nations World Tourism Organization, China is currentlyranked as the third most popular country for tourism.Hotel industry has been growing year by year，the investment and construction of both localand international hotels，combined with the development and establishment of new tradingzones in the cities, has increased the competition of hotels eager to attract more guests and atthe same time pushing forward the need to improve the quality of service for customers.The recent visa-free policy implemented in the cities such as Beijing, Shanghai，and Dalian toenlist some，allows transit tourist from over 45 countries to stay in one of the participantcities for up to 72 hours without a visa as an effort to bring more transit passengers into thecities, this measure already brought positive results on bringing more tourists, according toWang Zhenghua from chinadaly.com.cn since the implementation of the policy in January toSeptember pt 2013, in Shanghai only, about 8,300 transit foreigners stayed in the city, stillthis measure requires of more promotion in order to attract more attention as well as theparticipation of other cities, particularly the ones with heavy air traffic and connecting flights,but is already showing positive results on bringing transit passengers to use China as alayover destination and therefore to generate revenue for the touristic spots of the cities andtourism related business
1.2 Literature Review
CCC studies have been part of areas such as anthropology, sociology，communicationsciences，international relations and psychology (Proser，2012)，without any major study togain international recognition until the beginning of the seventies with Geert Hofstede'smodel of national cultural differences (Huijser, et al?，2002) and by his later publication of thecultural dimensions theory in 1984.Early cross-cultural studies placed more importance in the differences between American andJapanese cultures, as well as comparisons between American with other European countriesand members of the former Soviet Union (Proser, 2012). Nowadays especially because theeconomic and industrial development of China after the reforms and opening to the worldbetween 1980 and 1984 (Wei 1995) more studies have been conducted between thecontrasting aspects of culture between western nations and China (Proser, 2012)William B. Gudykunst as cited by Proser (2012) identified both intercultural communicationand CCC as areas of interaction between groups of different cultural backgrounds. Sinceculture can be viewed as a living and dynamic entity, the cultural attributes and elements of acountry will be in constant change (Gummesson，2006). Part of this change can be recognizedon the way a culture accepts and adapts elanents from others, this continuous change can beclearly recognized in the case of China where the influence of Western cultures has modifiedvalues and customs of certain groups of the population (Chung, 2008)，examples likeincorporating western menus and eating habits，products' brand selection to other areas suchas the desire to study abroad or adopt western holidays and ideals can be seen more often
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CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 Cross-Cultural Communication:
Concepts and Theories Communication, as defined by the International Encyclopedia of Hospitality Management(2010)，is the ‘exchange of information and understanding,' it is from this that we can inferthat communication with others is not only about transmitting some message or information，but a social event where people involved process and interpret the information according towhat their need and the interest they have from participating in the exchange.Cross-cultural communication (CCC) ‘involves comparisons of communication acrosscultures' (Gudykunst，2003). CCC is any type of interaction between people of differentcultural backgrounds; as a result knowledge of both language and culture will be crucial forthe quality and efficiency of the communication process.Studies of CCC started when governments and business were interested to switch betweenindividual-country capitalism to a global capitalism structure and expanding internationally(Everett et al., 2002); those companies started to offer language training courses to theiremployees, culture-general information and dimensions, as well as guidelines on how toimprove communication among people from different backgrounds.
2.2 Cross-Cultural Management
With the increase of international tourism, employees of hospitality business are in constantlyexposure with guests from different cultures and backgrounds, as noted by Pondent,cross-cultural management (CCM) offers techniques that will help the personnel to handlethose differences and generate positive outcomes for all the parties involved.Globalization is continuously changing the composition of the work force, their behavior andthe dynamics they experience in their work locations (Dong and Liu, 2010), CCM is a systemthat concerns with the interactions between different cultures within a business environment.CCM techniques focus primarily on the employees, to understand their different values whenworking with people coming from different cultures and to train them about the differences incultures, expectations and preferences of consumers. In addition，CCM also uses Hofstede'scultural dimension theory (Gannon and Newman, 2002) to have more sensitive approaches tothe management of employees and enhance the understanding, cooperation and interactionsbetween the workers in a company.Research by Tjosvold and Leung (2003) proposed a typology of CCM embedded in threedifferent contexts that describe the interactions among the organization, location and theinternational environment.The first context: Organization-Specific, focuses on the characteristics of the organizationand its members, as well as the processes involved in the work environment and theorganizational area. The Location-Specific researches the institution and cultural environmentin a determined location and how that location influences the functioning of the organization.Finally, International-Environment Related focuses on the nature of both international and global environment that affect how the company functions in an international context duringa certain point in time or during a period of time
CHAPTER 3. EMPLOYEES' AWARENESS AND QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN........ 26
3.1 Awareness of Employees of the Hospitality Industry about Cross-culturalCommunication: General Perspectives .....26
3.2 Methodology and Questionnaire Design ........29 CHAPTER 4. RESULTS ANALYSIS .................31
4.1 General Information about the Questionnaires Collected .............31
4.2 Comparative Results Analysis 32
4.2.2Work Experience and Training ............38
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY ..........58
5.1 Summary of Findings ............58
5.2 Conclusion ............60
5.3 Suggestions for Further Study................61
CHAPTER 4. RESULTS ANALYSIS
4.1 Genral Information about the Questionnaires
Collected The survey was done within 2 groups of respondents, both groups being currently employedin hotel companies: Chinese and employees from various Western countries. Replies fromboth groups allowed us to obtain and analyze the awareness on CCC between both groups.The results obtained from both versions of questionnaires help us to gain a broaderperspective about not only the constitution of hotel's work force, but also the priorities oftheir employees and the importance they place in the skills they need in order to perform theirjobs，the resources facilitated by their employers and most important about tiieir generalinterest and reactions when facing CCC situations in different cultures and countries. These 3 different types of reactions were found in employees from different positions whowere working in the same hotel. This indicates a lack of coherence from the staff, when someemployees answer the survey without problem and others reflised to do so using one of thetwo negative responses mentioned above. Also，some of the employees approached wereusing their phones at the time when responding they couldn't answer the survey due to beingon work hours, again showing lack of coherence and at the same time a lack of interest toparticipate in the survey, not giving a direct negative to responding the questionnaire andusing work or management as an excuse.
4.2 Comparative Results
Analysis As indicated on the bar chart, in the Chinese survey is observed the predominance of younglabor force, with the majority of employees in the 18-25 age gap and then progressivelydecreasing as the age group moves up. Meanwhile in the English survey it is observed a morebalance in the age groups between 18-25 and 26-35 years of the respondents, having a highernumber in the 26-35 age category，even when the numbers of respondents also decrease asthe age goes up, the numbers are significantly higher than in the Chinese version. We canreflect that the largest age group of hotel employees who participated in the surveys, in bothEnglish and Chinese version, is on majority younger than 36 years old. Due to nationality of aur (Mexican) and in order to collect the surveys from the Westernhotel employees, contacts from previous work experience in the hotel industry were used andsurveys were answered by employees of 9 different countries. The writer of this paperworked in United States of America as hotel employee; therefore both numbers Mexico andUSA respondents were higher. During the work experience in the field, the author hadco-workers coming from different countries and they were contacted through Internet andrequested to fill out the questionnaires, as well as using the snowball technique for surveys,were asked to forward the questionnaires to 2 or more co-workers in their respectivecountries. As mentioned previously, a limitation of this survey has also to do with the location of theauthor (Liaoning，Dalian)，the surveys were conducted in five different hotels in downtownDalian, therefore the biggest majority on the province of origin of the hotel employees in thecity belong to the Liaoning province, with smaller numbers on Jilin and Heilongjiangprovinces，which are in close proximity to Liaoning，being all part of the Northeast region ofChina.
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CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FORFURTHERSTUDY
5.1 Summary of Findings
Findings of the study indicated that hotel's staff is formed by a young and diverse work-force,the majority of them holding a bachelors degree diploma, in the case of Chinese employeeshaving proficiency in one foreign language and for Western participants in one or moreforeign languages.From the information provided by the hotel employees in both participant groups it showedthat people working in the accommodation industry，particularly in the case of Chineserespondents, work in the industry for 5 years or less, even when the majority of participantsfrom both groups indicated their interest in pursuing a career in hospitality, the fact that notmany of those employees reached experience on the field of more than 5 years reflect thechanging work environment and that employee retention is not always possible，differentreasons for this can include the same fact that employees are young so they don't have longwork experience in the area and prefer to look for other work opportunities, lack ofmotivation in the work environment, working times and schedule, inconformity with salaries,or because personal choices.Training is an essential part for hotel employees before they start to work in the company, itgives them not only a better idea about the job they need to perform but also help them to getmore familiarized with the whole environment. The length of the initial training employeeshave to undergo through in both groups was found to last between 1 to 2 days, especially forthe Chinese respondents, while for the participants in the English survey indicated longertraining sessions, this facilitated to cover more training topics than for their Chinesecounterparts.
5.2 Conclusions
Hotel companies who strive to attract international guests should invest in proper trainingprograms for all their front-line employees, clearly setting service quality standards, as wellas making the training flexible allowing employees to attend even with their different workschedules. Training can't be only limited to before an employee starts to work, but alsoshould offer continuous training options for the staff, both in the format of formal training aswell as in resources available permanently for the employees. CCTr programs should be tailored to meet the demands of each position, covering the mosttypical cross-cultural difficulties employees can face depending on their work position, oneexample can be about food customs from cultures of the most common guests to visit thehotel for food and beverage employees, or most common problems and information requiredfrom guest when checking-in for front desk employees, to mention a couple of examples
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参考文献（略）