Image has consistently been found to be a crucial determinant of tourists’ intentions to visit destinations, and negative misperceptions can have devastating results to tourism arrival numbers. Yet, scant empirical evidence has been collected regarding how Western tourists’ attitudes affect their intentions to travel to the Middle East Region.
One of the most often used theoretical frameworks for examining how attitudes affect behaviors is the theory of planned behavior. Additionally, the role tourists’ social identity plays in potential tourists’ behavioral intentions has been found to be important, but it has rarely been studied. Hence, this study was undertaken in order to advance the theoretical and practical understanding of tourism by extending the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to include the construct of social identity salience as developed from social identity theory.
Data were collected from potential American tourists (n=630), and the hypotheses tested with structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings led the researcher to conclude that the extended TPB model with social identity fit the data well. Statistical results supported most of the hypothesized relationships among the study variables.
Thus, this made various advances for research and practice. In general, empirical evidence that was delivered from this research led the researcher to suggest (1) the effects of social identity of tourists on the attitudinal beliefs towards a travel destination; (2) the appropriateness of the TPB model in a tourism context; (3) the non-significant effect of social identity on behavioral intention; (4) the effects of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control on the behavioral intention level of tourist. Additionally, to be an asset in evolving the tourism industry in the Middle East Region, the current study provides practical implications to destination authorities and people who account for promoting tourism in that region (e.g., practitioners and tourism leaders) to advance their understanding of the Western perceptions
