From Screen to Suitcase: The Influence of Gender Portrayals in Viva La Romance on Young Chinese Women's Tourism Consumption Behaviours

This study examines the effects of gender images in the Chinese reality television production Viva La Romance on young Chinese female tourism consumption patterns. The study is guided by the theory of feminism and media effects, with a qualitative-centred mixed-methods design using qualitative content analysis and interviews as the primary source of data, accompanied by descriptive survey data. Analysis of content passed through ten well-designed episodes during different seasons to apply an inductive interpretation to destination framing and gendered behaviors applied regularly. Also, twenty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted with female viewers (the age ranged between 18 and 35), which were thematically analyzed in the NVivo application with hybrid approaches to coding and sentiment analysis. The results indicate that femininity is shown through the prism of romantic and aesthetic travel stories when power and career identities are minor in terms of representation. The outcomes of surveys revealed that 84 per cent of viewers were inspired to travel, 72 per cent were aware of gender role depictions, and only 40 per cent of the audience were opposed to stereotypes, which indicated the passive internalization of post-feminist ideals. Behavioural data supported that it had a substantial effect on destination choice and quality tourism expenditure, yet little effect on the trust to travel alone. These findings imply that Viva La Romance constructs a media space where harnessing power is watered down, and traditional gender conventions are implicitly reaffirmed. The research recommends changes in the media to reflect more representations that would embrace real female independent tourism consumption. The research contributes to tourism research by showing the role of gender representations in the media in travel motivation and consumption, and to feminist media research, as the empirical research has related postfeminist narratives to tourism behaviour.