Tourist demand and supply are becoming increasingly diversified, refined market segmentation is critical for the survival and development of a tourism destination. Encountering the difficulties of continuous decline of visitor arrivals and surge in the trade deficit, China’s inbound tourism market serves as an excellent study context for validating the efficiency of market segmentation. Plog’s theory of psychographic typos is the underlying theoretical ground of this study, which also provides the principle segmentation basis of“venturesomeness”for the study. The theory allocates each US tourist into a certain place of a continuous defined by two extreme personality categories of venturer and dependence. Typical positive mental characteristics (like curiosity, confidence and being energetic) exemplify the more venturesome group, while their most negative counterparts are closely related to the dependable side. Linking the law of a destination’s vicissitudes with the mainstream psychographic tourists it attracts, Plog pointed out that it is optimal to target a core crowd in the near-venture segment in order to increase visitation. Therefore, this study aims at segmenting the US leisure travelers who visit China to identify a most valuable near-venture niche crowd that acts as leverage in market revitalization. A method merging various elements of segmentation was adopted, in that combine“a posterior approach”with“a priori approach”in an overall framework of multi-stage segmentation.“Activity participation”was added as the second core variable in segmentation. It is particular helpful in identifying the market share, demand matching, competitive positioning, pedigree integrity and future development focus of the current products. This practice will compensate of the limitations of segmenting by the variable of“venturesomeness”alone. A survey was conducted to US travelers who had finished their visitation and were waiting for flying back, in the departure lounges of seven most important international airports in mainland China.“Proportionate stratified sampling”and“systematic random sampling”were used together in recruiting research participants, based on the sample size determined by a confidence interval approach. Cluster analysis,χ2 tests and“Economic Value Portfolio Matrix”were mainly used in data analysis. Four sub- segments of near- venturers belonging to different activity sets were identified:excitement experiencers, recreation and amusement seekers, culture searchers and extensive interest holders. Three social-demographic features of age, employment status and annual income, as well as all trip features except travel mode, were found as significant differentiators among the groups.“Economic value portfolio matrix”allocated a SSI index score to every respondent. The group of“culture searchers”was found the most valuable basis for further targeted marketing, as it is a substantial market with a SSI index constitution, demonstrating good economic value. Finally, in-depth discussions were provided by the authors, concerning the practical and theoretical implications of the current study, and future research proposal. From a managerial perspective, maintaining the authenticity of culture attractions and using programming technique are the keys to target those culture searchers. Academically, two main implications are discussed as follows. First, the article confirms“venturesomeness”plus“activity participation”serves as a useful combination of segmentation variables that can be used step by step. Second, the study reveals the necessity of conduct thorough study on the niche market of near-venturers, which was largely ignored by academia previously. Future study could include developing a more reliable, valid and generalizable venturesomeness scale, integrating into the overlapped segmentation method, and adding activities gauged qualitatively to enrich the activity scale.%随着游客需求和产品供应的分化，精细化市场细分对目的地的生存发展愈发重要。当前遭遇发展瓶颈的我国入境游就亟须该技术提供科学指导。文章基于Plog心理类型理论，试图识别美国近冒险型消遣游客市场中对访问增长最具杠杆作用的核心人群。细分设计在整体多阶段框架下涵盖了对“前验法”和“后验法”的次序运用。4个属于不同活动组群的近冒险型子细分市场被识别：户外刺激体验者、休闲娱乐追求者、文化探求者和兴趣广泛者“。经济价值组合矩阵”指向文化探求者为未来营销瞄准的最适宜对象。
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