Cross-Cultural Service Encounter

This paper explores the cross-cultural communication during the service encounter of international tourists from China, France and the USA and Vietnamese service providers. It presents the findings of a self-administered survey to 235 Chinese, 180 French and 170 American tourists visiting Vietnam. The findings indicated that cultural values and rules of behaviour guiding Western and Asian respondents were found to have more differences than similarities. The differences impact upon host and guest inter-cultural interactions during service encounter. The implications for tourism industry management destination and marketers are presented. It is recommended that the Vietnamese tourism authorities target international tourism markets more precisely and improve the quality of service provision