Chinese tourists have always been an important part of the Korean tourism market. Food tourism is the second most important tourist action of Chinese tourists coming to Korea. Tourism motivation is an important psychological factor that motivates tourism actions, so paying attention to and studying the food tourism motivation of Chinese tourists is an important issue for the Korean tourism market.
This study surveyed 300 Chinese tourists who had travel experience in Korea, collected their food tourism motivation through online questionnaire survey, and clustered tourists according to their food tourism motivation through cluster analysis.
The results of this study are as follows. Through the cluster analysis, Chinese tourists with food tourism experience were classified into three clusters according to their food tourism motivation, namely cluster 1 'Balanced motivation', cluster 2 'Local experience' and cluster 3 'Interpersonal relationship'. And the frequency analysis and cross analysis of the demographic characteristics of the three clusters and the general characteristics of Korean food tourism was analyzed. Subsequent analysis of variance revealed that the three clusters differed in terms of hygiene and service, menu, quality of food and overall satisfaction. In terms of mean satisfaction values, cluster 2 'Local experience' ranked first, cluster 1 'Balanced motivation' second and cluster 3 'Interpersonal relationship'. The differences between the three clusters in terms of mean satisfaction with hygiene and service, the menu and the quality of the food were significant, while the differences in overall satisfaction between those in cluster 1'Balanced motivation' and those in cluster 3'Interpersonal relationship' were not significant. Finally, according to the demographic characteristics of the three clusters, the general characteristics of Korean food tourism and their satisfaction with Korean food and Korean restaurants, a Korean food market segmentation strategy suitable for these three clusters was proposed.