The Expression Of Perceived Social Status Through Tourism

Tourism is not only seen by tourists as an opportunity for recreation, relaxation and way to visit some other distant areas and peripheries, but also as a mean to express their social status. They actually use their travel as a pathway to reconfirm to friends, relatives and colleagues their social positioning, and they usually perceive it as an interconnection between their social class and the distance of voyage they do. Using a conducted research in air travelers from three different nationalities, this paper examines the connecting parts towards distance, trip cost, and origin versus destination similarities in culture and human behavior, and tourists’ expression of perceived social status. It finally proposes a model dealing with the expression of social status through tourism voyage and cultural differentiation

Measuring Destination Image and Consumer Choice Criteria: The Case of Mykonos Island

Destination image has long been identified as an environmental characteristic that influences consumer behaviour and choice. As destinations compete nowadays globally, marketers need to acquire new knowledge and a greater understanding of the business and the environment, in which they operate in order to determine and adopt an appropriate marketing mix. So, first research objective was to measure attitudes towards island of Mykonos in order to identify key dimensions and their relative importance in determining consumer choice. Then, Cluster analysis was performed in order to segment the market and identify different clusters of tourists. Four different clusters were identified based on choice criteria and attitudes. Results can be a valuable input for both marketers and practitioners

Measuring Destination Image and Consumer Choice Criteria: The Case of Mykonos Island

Destination image has long been identified as an environmental characteristic that influences consumer behaviour and choice. As destinations compete nowadays globally, marketers need to acquire new knowledge and a greater understanding of the business and the environment, in which they operate in order to determine and adopt an appropriate marketing mix. So, first research objective was to measure attitudes towards island of Mykonos in order to identify key dimensions and their relative importance in determining consumer choice. Then, Cluster analysis was performed in order to segment the market and identify different clusters of tourists. Four different clusters were identified based on choice criteria and attitudes. Results can be a valuable input for both marketers and practitioners

The Impact of Islamic Destination Attributes on Saudi Arabians’ Decision to Visit Jakarta: Tourism Destination Image as a Mediating Variable

This research aims to examine the influence of Islamic attributes of destinations, which include worship facilities, halalness, and general Islamic morality, on Saudi Arabians’ decision to visit Jakarta with tourism destination image as a mediating variable. The research data were obtained from 200 respondents who visited Jakarta and completed the administered questionnaires. The analysis was carried out using the SEM technique with AMOS software. The results show that the Islamic attributes of the destination have a significant effect on the decision to visit Jakarta with tourism destination image as a mediating variable. The findings of this research show that more than half of the tourists were between 20 and 34 years old. This is closely related to the fact that millennials are active in the digital space, especially in social media. Therefore, this should be used by stakeholders in the Indonesian tourism sector to generate a positive tourism image which will eventually affect Saudi Arabian tourists’ visit decision. Having a vacation (86%) and visiting cultural destinations (46.5%) were the main motives underlying the Saudi Arabians’ visits to Jakarta. This can be taken into account in the promotion of Jakarta’s tourism destinations, especially in Saudi Arabia. This research still has several limitations. Therefore, surveys in other cities are needed for future research. Furthermore, it is recommended that future research employs qualitative methods to see any difference in the results. The research should also analyse other variables such as destination loyalty and destination satisfaction if needed

Tourist Destination Image in the New Technological Environments: Dialogism under the Public Relations Gaze

The dependence and influence of new media on social and organizational life have led to a new orientation of the communicational practices of organizations and to a research paradigm shift to a cocriational model within public relations theory. This model is based on dialogic rhetoric and dialogue that requires a joint production of content and meanings by organizations and publics, which have a central role in shaping image. The new social and communicational paradigms have also an impact on tourism research, implying the need to understand the role of new technologies, particularly websites, in image formation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of website in the formation of a tourist destination image (Portugal) through the understanding of the degree of adoption of dialogical principles on websites by official and unofficial tourist organizations and the identifying of denotative and connotative elements that are represented on published and shared photographs in these websites. The research corpus consisted of websites of entities and photographs published and shared on these websites. The methodology used is quantitative and qualitative, based on content analysis of data of websites and photographs. Results indicate that official tourist entities adopted the dialogic principles in a higher degree than unofficials. There is also a higher adoption of the principles related to technical dimension than dialogical dimension. Results confirm a relation between the adoption of dialogical link and an increased openness by entities to the possibility of photo sharing. The analysis of denotative and connotative elements of photography reflects a similarity in representations of entities and tourists. This study contributes to both theoretical perspectives, because it provides a conceptual scheme of destination image formation online and to a practical perspective, because it also suggests guidelines of dialogical practices to incorporate in websites of tourism entities

Italy's image as a tourism destination in the Chinese leisure travel market.

This study aims to measure the image of Italy as a tourism destination on the Chinese leisure traveller market. To this end, Echtner & Ritchie’s model (1991) is applied; however, compared to its original formulation, it is implemented with greater consideration of the experiential dimension and potential travel constraints affecting the perception of the range of tourism goods and services on offer. This enables not just a denotative, but also and above all a connotative measurement of the image, thereby reducing the risk of ambiguity in the interpretation of the most significant attributes that emerged during the analysis. Adopting a hypothetical segmentation of the market in question, it was also possible to the elements that act as encouraging and discouraging factors regarding a holiday in Italy are highlight, identifying tailor-made approaches to the construction and promotion/commercialisation of tourism products designed to be attractive to the specific segment of interest

Positioning Based on Satisfaction Attributes in the Context of a Domestic Tourism Destination: The Case of Yor Island, Thailand

Positioning strategy is often adopted for major destinations, but not for smaller or mini destinations. This research breaks with tradition by attempting to develop and recommend an optimum research-based market-positioning strategy for a mini destination or a small destination i.e. Yor Island, within a larger area i.e. Songkla. Tourists’ satisfaction toward product attributes of Yor Island compared to its competitors was measured to investigate the competitiveness of Yor Island. Domestic tourists were divided based on socio-demographic basis before the potential target markets of Yor Island were identified. The evaluation focused on tourists’ post-consumption satisfaction using mixed methods approach. Qualitative data from interviews with eight local tourism experts generated information for a SWOT analysis of Yor Island. Quantitative data from the survey of 400 domestic tourists was analysed using multidimensional scaling and correspondence analysis. Results from using these analytical techniques provided a variety of information on destination image similarities, strengths, and ideals between Yor Island and its competitors, as well as the relationships of major socio-demographic characteristics of visitors to the destinations. The mixed method approach has also highlighted the potential target tourists of Yor Island whose age are between 25-34 years old with at least a bachelor’s degree, and monthly income of between RM 2,000.00 to RM 3,000.00. Moreover, it also showed that ‘friendliness of the people’ is an attribute that could be used as leverage in the development of the Yor Island’s positioning strategy. Overall, this study has illustrated that research-based market-positioning strategy is applicable not only to major destinations, but to a mini or small destination as well

The influence of post-visit factors on multifaceted destination image formation

Destination image, an important element for destination positioning and selection process, is a widely-studied topic in tourism for the last four decades. Despite the wide coverage given to this topic, there are still disputes related to the conceptualization of destination image construct and formation. First, there is a myriad of literature supporting the role of cognitive and affective images as the dualcomponents of destination image construct. But the literature pays little attention to conative image and seems silent on multisensory image. Responding to these limitations, this research attempted to incorporate the four image components and investigate their interrelationships. Second, studies on destination image formation tend to focus on the pre-visit phase while the factors in the post-visit phase are neglected. This research attempted to investigate the influence of previous experience, tourist experience and intensity of visit on post-visit destination image formation. Based on the setting of Phoenix ancient town in China, this research used a mixed-method approach to collect data from domestic tourists, and employed structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis to analyze the data. Finally, based on the data analysis, the research verified the interrelationships between cognitive, affective, conative and multisensory images and proved that previous experience, tourist experience and intensity of visit either positively or negatively influence different image components’ formation. The contribution of this research has added to the limited knowledge on China’s ancient town tourism. Practically, this research has managerial implications and would help destination marketers to identify, improve and promote the touristic destinations by creating a positive and unique destination image