This research focuses on the cross-cultural study of the spatial distribution of tourists (SDT) or international tourists (SDIT) within China. It encompasses two broad areas of knowledge base - cross-cultural and SDT. Many of the issues in these wide ranging, but overlapping, domains have developed separately and have as yet to be conceptualised and researched in a holistic and rigorous manner. This makes the holistic and behavioural perspective, as well as the scientific approach of this study, all the more novel. The societal context of this study - tourism in China, adds more practical and theoretical interest to this research. Its diversified tourism resources provide one of the best places to carry out a cross-cultural spatial research. The conceptual framework has strengthened and reinforced the literature in two respects. First, the notion of SDT has been clarified, and it is suggested that it consists of three features of tourist movement - pattern, direction and intensity. Secondly, a factual `cultural distance' variable, formed from cultural constructs, has been used to underpin the cross-cultural comparative framework in addition to commonly applied cultural proxies such as nationality. The whole research methodology was developed based upon these two notions, and was greatly enhanced by the use of the discrete choice approach (logistic regression models) by which the operational challenges faced when incorporating the behavioural elements into cross-cultural and spatial research were successfully resolved. The research findings do not entirely support the empirical evidence quoted in the crosscultural SDT literature. The key findings of this research are that tourists prefer linear instead of circular travel within China; their movements are either vertical and/or horizontal; international gateway positions of Beijing and Shanghai have been confirmed, but that of Guangzhou is questioned. All the cultural related variables are significant in the SDIT, but cultural distance is more sensitive at expressing the differences in the SDIT than cultural proxies. There is no evidence suggesting that geographical distance is a primary factor in the SDIT. Some trip attributes, such as travel groups, as well as social economic variables, such as income levels, are confirmed as significant, but demographic characteristics such as age and gender show no significance in the cross-cultural SDIT within a destination country.