A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of Philosophy. ; This research focuses on the multidimensionality of Chinese outbound tourism to Western Europe and particularly highlights the visitation of Chinese millennial students to the Netherlands. The contributions made to knowledge construction are first of all, to establish a propaedeutic research agenda for which this current research serves as a framework. Simultaneously, seven discernable dimensions have been identified as archetypal to the Chinese tourist, especially regarding their key interests and behaviour when visiting Western European destinations. These being competitive, demographic, economic, technological, cultural, natural and political. Within this construct, the researcher drew from Urry’s ‘The Tourist’s Gaze’, and Pearce et al., reconstruction of this, in their article in Tourism Recreation Research on “Puzzles in Understanding Chinese Tourist Behaviour: Towards a Triple-C Gaze”, to create the Quadruple-C Gaze in depicting the Chinese millennial tourist’s behaviour. (Quadruple-C is in reference to Confucianism, Capitalism, Communism, and Consumerism). The latter is a proposition for the establishment of a propaedeutic research agenda, which is derived from this study. In exercising an interpretative research methodology, the researcher attempted to gain a comprehensive understanding of the key interests of Chinese millennial tourists to the Netherlands and juxtapose them to Chinese millennial students as tourists to the Netherlands. At the same time, an investigation was carried out into the implications of these visits for the Dutch tourism industry as well as the Dutch higher education board. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among experts from the Dutch tourism industry as well as from the Dutch higher education board and experts from Dutch universities. Likewise, focus groups meetings were held among five different groups of Chinese millennial students ...