Dr. Xuan V Tran

The purpose of this study is to use actor network theory to explore the short-term and long-term relationships between two Asian countries: Malaysia and China, the two most visited countries in Asia in 2012. The Actor Network theory explains the roles of two actors China and Malaysia in tourism as mobility and performativity, respectively. The tourism in China is composed of culture differences whereas the tourism in Malaysia focuses on business concentration. Vector Auto Regressive, Vector Error Correction, and Granger analysis were conducted to explore the time series data of tourism receipts. Findings indicate that both Malaysia and China do not have short-term influence of tourism development. Interestingly, the long-term tourism of Malaysia will depend on the disequilibrium of tourism receipts between China and Malaysia but not vice versa. The findings have contributed to supporting the Actor Network Theory in developing tourism of China and Malaysia.