Tourists' Images of a Destination-An Alternative Analysis

Tourism research has traditionally tackled the question of destination choice by asking visitors to rank attributes identified by the analyst and to indicate the degree to which they measure up to prior expectations. The current presentation offers an alternative qualitative methodology to the gauging of satisfaction, motivation and experience by focusing on tourists and examining the linguistic content of their mental images. The case study is that of Barbados and winter visitors to that Caribbean island. In supplying details of their own projected images and responses to pictorial stimuli in both pre and on-trip situations, they provide a framework for analysis at three levels. While cognitive appraisal of the destination is explored by means of mental comparison, the affective dimension reveals a vocabulary of motive. Finally, there is a cognitive component of imagery in which tourists project themselves into an imagined scenario as if they had already experienced it. These various layers of subjective meaning may be collectively understood as analogous to the discourse of advertising.     

Designing persuasive destination websites: A mental imagery processing perspective

Existing research suggests that consumers’ choices of vacations may be significantly influenced by mental imagery processing, which is considered to be high elaboration cognitive processing. This study first aimed to identify imagery-eliciting Web site features, and second to test their influence on persuasion-related outcomes such as attitude strength, confidence, and attitude resistance. A total of 252 subjects participated in a Web-based experiment to examine the influence of selected Web site features on individual imagery processing and its effect on consumers’ attitudes and expectations. The data was analyzed primarily using a structural equation modeling methodology. Structural model results revealed that the mental imagery construct strongly influenced the measured communication effects. In terms of inducing mental imagery processing, only pictures were found to make a significant difference. The findings stress the importance of researching mental imagery processing in tourism and provide practical implications for the design of persuasive destination Web sites.     

Quality of virtual reality and its impacts on behavioral intention

Although virtual reality (VR) has received growing attention and been adopted as customer engagement and marketing tools in the hospitality and tourism industry, little research has been conducted in quality assessment of VR and its impact on customers’ psychological acceptance. Building upon the DeLone and McLean’s IS success model, this study identifies the quality factors of VR and examines their impacts on customers’ behavioral intention. This study develops a quality-driven VR framework and tests the proposed hypotheses assessing customers’ behavioral intentions. For the empirical analysis, this study recruits potential U.S. customers and asks them to browse a VR-based destination website and then to answer the online survey related to VR applications. The collected responses are analyzed by PLS-SEM. Findings suggest that content quality, system quality, and vividness positively influence customers’ attitude and telepresence, leading to their positive behavioral intention to visit the destination.     

Celebrity endorsements in destination marketing: A three country investigation

The present study extends research on the role of celebrity endorsements in destination marketing by exploring various facets of the effect of celebrity endorsements in destination marketing on the consumer. More specifically, theories of source credibility, congruence, social identity and consumer cosmopolitanism, are used to build research questions that investigate the relative effectiveness of a celebrity endorsed tourism advertisement vis a vis a generic advertisement and the boundary conditions governing the same such as destination type (local/global), celebrity country of origin and consumer level factors. The research questions are addressed using four experimental studies in sequence. The same four experiments are run in three countries with different socio-cultural backgrounds to enhance generalization, with a combined sample size of 1073 respondents. Major findings suggest that a celebrity endorser is effective for a destination advertisement. Significant cross-country differences were observed in consumer affect depending on the choice of celebrity (local or global) and the destination type (i.e., domestic or international). The effects are also moderated by consumer cosmopolitanism. The study has multiple theoretical and managerial implications.     

Can gamification improve the virtual reality tourism experience? Analyzing the mediating role of tourism fatigue

Although virtual reality (VR) technology has been increasingly applied in the tourism industry, improving the VR experience of tourists remains a challenge. Based on two studies, this paper examines how gamification can improve the VR tourism experience through reducing tourism fatigue. Study 1 explores the relationship between gamification, tourism fatigue, and tourist satisfaction. The results show that tourists are more satisfied with a gamified, rather than non-gamified, VR tourism experience, and that motivational fatigue plays a mediating role between gamification and tourism satisfaction. Study 2 provides further evidence that four elements in gamification (challenge, feedback, reward, and leaderboard) can alleviate motivational fatigue and improve tourist satisfaction, with feedback playing the biggest role. The findings have valuable practical implications for VR experience providers, for destination practitioners in VR experience enhancement, and for the application of gamification to the VR tourism experience.     

Could virtual reality effectively market slow travel in a heritage destination?

A recent trend in tourism research involves the application of high technology in marketing practices such as virtual reality (VR), cell phone apps, and new media. Among these, VR is the most novel. In 2016, Discovery Travel created TRVLR, which includes all seven continents. Even earlier, specific tourist destinations were providing VR content about their respective locales. These venues expose potential tourists to tourist locations by immersing them in a visceral, 360-degree storytelling setting. However, while VR has gradually grown in popularity in the tourism industry, the marketing effects have been infrequently studied by academia. This research asked participants to view a VR presentation of a famous 700-year-old Chinese painting, and investigated viewers' nostalgia and ST travel intentions. Information was collected from 308 samples at certain popular tourist destinations around Fuzhou in the Fujian Province of China, and Taipei and Taoyuan in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling was then used to analyze the collected data and test the hypotheses. The findings indicate that VR is a very useful tool for encouraging respondents to travel to Jinan in a slower and more intensely observational manner, significantly arousing their sense of nostalgia and leading to a strong intention to ST to Jinan. This research provides important insights into how this new technology might function as a tool for marketing Jinan, a tier-two but historically important destination in China. The implications of these findings are important to understanding the associations for potential tourists among VR use, destination marketing, and travel intention, particularly when the object city is relatively unknown.     

Reject or select: Mapping destination choice

The purpose of this study is to empirically explore tourists’ destination choice processes. Destination choices are investigated using a combination of data on destinations and on tourists’ individual destination choices. Data were collected in Munich/Germany in 2013 using personal interviews; 622 interviews were completed. This approach allows detecting reasons for the rejection or selection of certain types of destinations during the destination choice process. Results show that tourists often start the destination choice process with various combinations of destination types but act similarly when choosing the final destination. The investigation of tourist and destination characteristics results in a tourist typology that varies in regard to similarity and type of alternative destinations at different stages of the destination choice process.     

The effect of information presentation modes on tourists’ responses in Internet marketing: the moderating role of emotions

In order to enhance our understanding of the effectiveness of information transmission through virtual reality (VR), this study used a modified stimulus–organism–response framework to examine the relationships between information presentation modes (VR versus picture), emotions (pleasure and arousal), and tourists’ responses, namely attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA) in the context of Internet tourism marketing. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) were employed to analyze data gathered from 184 respondents participating in a factorial experimental design. The results indicated that compared with the picture mode, the VR mode had superior effects on tourists’ responses, but these superior effects were moderated by arousal. High-arousal tourists had stronger AIDA responses in the VR mode than in the picture mode. However, the stronger effects of the VR mode on tourists’ AIDA responses disappeared in the low-arousal group. The findings of this study provide several important theoretical and practical implications for Internet tourism marketing.     

Building the Destination Brand: An Empirical Comparison of Two Approaches

Destination brand strategies have in the main assumed that consumers actively seek and process information about potential destinations with their choice determined on the basis of a favorable attitude toward the destination. This article examines an alternative approach to destination branding, which relates to building the salience of the destination to increase the likelihood that the destination will be considered in purchase situations. The study examines the predictive validity of brand salience measures for a set of travel destinations compared with the predictive validity of traditional attitude-based measures. The results of the research provide empirical support for a salience approach to destination marketing for domestic tourism in Australia.     

Tourists’ happiness: are there smart tourism technology effects?

The purpose of this study is to develop a research model demonstrating tourists’ value-seeking processes through the tourism services and travel experiences of a destination. The model suggests that tourist happiness is assessed by tourists’ perceived experiences, which are formed by two motivational values: smart tourism technology (STT) and destination value. Despite a large quantity of research attention on destination tourism, the relation between tourists’ destination experience and STT has been less enthusiastically studied. Therefore, this study proposes to test an integrated model with attributes of STTs and destination values that contribute to tourists’ life happiness. The results of this study, from a survey of 191 foreign tourists in Seoul, South Korea, indicate that tourists are likely to put more value on what they perceived from their destination travel experiences than what they perceived from their experiences with STT services when they evaluate their overall happiness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

A fad or the future? Examining the effectiveness of virtual reality advertising in the hotel industry

New virtual reality technology presents hotels with wide-ranging marketing, training, and customer service opportunities. The purpose of this study was to explore both the immediate and delayed effects of hotel VR commercials as compared to traditional video commercials. Based on the perceptual load theory and elaboration likelihood model, this study designed and conducted a 2 × 2 laboratory experiment with two stages of data collection. The study demonstrated that VR commercials produced better immediate effects than the traditional commercials, especially for participants with high elaboration likelihood levels. However, the findings also revealed significant decreases in purchase intention among participants watching VR commercials and a significant improvement in attitudes among participants watching traditional commercials. Both theoretical and practical implications were discussed to leverage the power of VR in marketing.     

Integrating virtual reality devices into the body: effects of technological embodiment on customer engagement and behavioral intentions toward the destination

ABSTRACT

Virtual reality devices create a high integration of technologies with human senses. However, few studies analyze how embodied technologies affect customer pre-experiences with a destination. Results from a lab experiment show that compared to desktop PC and mobile phones, VR head-mounted displays generate more immersive experiences, higher sensory stimulation, more engagement, and higher behavioral intentions toward the destination. Immersion and sensory stimulation mediate the effects of technological embodiment on engagement and behavioral intentions. Furthermore, active (versus passive) tourism content strengthens these effects. Our results stress the role of technological embodiment to generate effective pre-experiences with potential tourists’ destinations.     

Exploring the influence of tourists’ happiness on revisit intention in the context of Traditional Chinese Medicine cultural tourism

Based on how tourists interpret the destination experience and on attachment theory, this study investigates the influencing mechanism of tourists' happiness on revisit intention for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) cultural tourism destinations. Three tourist samples confirm the three dimensions of tourists' happiness: positive emotions, engagement, and meaning. Two surveys were conducted to test the direct and indirect influence of tourists' happiness on revisit intention and the moderating role of tourists' health consciousness. The results show that tourists' happiness promotes memorable tourism experience and place attachment, in turn stimulating revisit intention. The results also support health consciousness as a significant moderator between happiness, place attachment, and revisit intention. The findings enrich theoretical understanding of tourists’ happiness and provide marketing and management advice for TCM cultural tourism destinations.     

A destination imagery processing model: Structural differences between dream and favourite destinations

The present paper aims at understanding how destination imagery is processed in tourists’ working memory. The research focuses on two highly desirable, but contrasting, destination brand categories: Favourite Destination, which involves retrospective memory of positive experiences in situ; and Dream Destination, based on tourists’ prospective memory. Through an online multilingual survey, 23,446 responses consisting of perceptions, evoked by way of free-recall, associated to Dream and Favourite Destinations, were collected. Findings point to clear structural differences between the imagery of Dream and Favourite Destinations. Additionally, a theoretical destination imagery model that offers a basis for future studies is proposed, and some managerial implications of significant relevance to destination marketing are discussed.     

The Amazing Race to India: Prominence in reality television affects destination image and travel intentions

Considering the increasing popularity of reality television shows, this research investigated the impact of a destination placement in reality television on tourism. Two experiments reveal that a reality show can change the image of the destination in which the show is set. This positively affects cognitive, affective and behavioral outcomes. Specifically, it changes perceptions in accordance with the depiction of the destination in the reality show, increases knowledge about the destination, favorably affects viewers' attitude toward the destination, and even more importantly, increases the intention to travel to the destination. Our findings are of interest to destination marketing organizations; they inform them on how to promote touristic destinations.     

A phenomenological approach of blogger’s view on cultural distance

This paper is intended to determine the influence of cultural distance on the international destination choices by tourists. We adopted a phenomenological approach and data were obtained from 17 bloggers with structured interview form and evaluated by content analysis. We evaluated the research data as three processes, as pre-travel, during travel and post-travel. We identified a tangible and an intangible preparation stage in the pre-travel process. We observed that an increase in cultural distance caused an increase in the destination obscurity and thus in the mental preparation. We found cultural experience, cultural acquisition and personal change themes during traveling. In the meantime, the increase in the geographic distance influences the cultural distance perception. We determined that destinations that are geographically remote (especially the Asian countries) are also culturally remote and interesting. We proposed a model that cultural distance is a moderator variable between travel motivation and destination choice.     

Sequential choice behavior: Going on vacation and type of destination

The literature of destination choice has so far studied multi-stage decision making processes that are more representative of the general choice behavior of tourists (e.g. going on vacation, going abroad, and destination country). Alternatively, this study proposes a multi-stage decision process to the choice of tourist destination types (going on vacation, coastal character, and urban character of the destination) as these choice sets are more idiosyncratic to tourists who prefer a specific type of tourist destination (e.g. Spain with clear coastal and inland variations). In order to test this multi-stage choice process as well as the sequential order of both decisions, coastal character and urban character, the current study analyses decision processes vs. different hierarchical multi-stage processes (going on vacation and coastal character preceding urban character; and going on vacation and urban character preceding coastal character). The empirical findings support the existence of a multi-stage choice process where coastal character precedes the urban character destination choice. The main implication of these findings is that, given the limited human analytical capability, a hierarchical choice process can be useful to handle the information overload and the complexity inherent to the destination type choice.     

游客的旅游地选择与购买决策模型分析

旅游者的消费行为主要表现在对旅游地和旅游产品的信息接受、感知、选择和决策这一过程中。本文构筑了一个游客对旅游地选择和购买决策的模型,并且分析了这个模型中对游客消费行为起决定作用的因素。通过对这个模型的理解和重要因素的控制,旅游市场营销工作者可以更好地把握游客的消费行为,制订出合理有效的营销计划。     

Functional and Aesthetic Information Needs Underlying The Pleasure Travel Experience

Consumer information acquisition has largely focused on decision-making or functional needs. Recently, a set of complementary information needs (i.e., hedonic, aesthetic, and social) have been introduced I the consumer behavior literature. This study examines functional and aesthetic information needs in a tourism consumption context, specifically pre-trip information needs are shown to be at the core of information acquisition with product knowledge, aesthetic imagery and planning efficiency needs at the “periphery.” Suggestions for destination marketing communication strategies and future research are presented.     

A comparative assessment of destination image,travel risk perceptions and travel intention by young travellers across three ASEAN countries: a study of German students

This paper seeks to offer a comparative assessment of destination image and travel risk as perceived by young German travellers across three ASEAN countries, namely Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. In addition, effects of destination image and travel risk perception on intention to visit are evaluated. The results are drawn based on an online survey of 281 German university students who have recently travelled long-haul, each offering their perceptions of the three countries for analysis. It was found that destination image and travel risk perceptions vary across the studied destinations. Furthermore, destination image factors are discovered to display much stronger relationships with travel intention than the risk factors. The results reveal that travel risk perceptions only had some influence on visit intentions in Vietnam, which is perceived to have higher degrees of risk. Moreover, the relationship between tourist role and destination choice was confirmed.