This paper selects Xi'an and Suzhou as the research objects, uses the methods of questionnaire and situational simulated method to discuss the impact of tourists' perceived destination image and self-concept congruity on intention to visit, and the moderating effect of self-construal (independent / interdependent). The Study I found the following results: the tourists' perceived destination image and self-concept congruity as well as the self-concept congruity dimensions (actual self-concept congruity, ideal self-concept congruity, social self-concept congruity, ideal social self-concept congruity) have a significant positive effect on intention to visit; the impact of ideal self-concept congruity is greater than that of actual self-concept congruity; the impact of ideal social self-concept congruity is greater than that of social self-concept congruity; and the ideal self-concept congruity has strongest impact on intention to visit. The Study II found out that: self-construal has moderating effect on this impact; the higher the actual self-concept congruity perceived by the tourists of independent self-construal, the greater the intention to visit; the higher the social self-concept congruity perceived by the tourists of interdependent self-construal, the greater the intention to visit. The research conclusion has certain reference value for building of tourism destination image, understanding of the tourism decision-making of the tourists and formulation and implementation of marketing strategies of relevant departments and enterprises.

How the destination image is presented in terms of the content and the selected media is known to have a considerable influence on consumers. In the current study, we examined the effect of destination images of Japanese hot spring hotels through photographic images taken by actual hotel guests on intended customer engagement behaviors (CEB) and their evoked conceptualization of the hotels. By showing photographic images of two types of hot spring hotels (traditional/contemporary) to participants from the United States (Phase 1, n=154) and Japan (Phase 2, n=677), we found that the image of traditional hot spring hotels induced higher evaluations and stronger CEB. When participants were clustered based on their travel motivations, we also found that, in both inbound and domestic markets, more engaged tourists gave higher evaluations and stronger CEB. The results suggest that the relationship among key constructs tested in this study validates the conceptual perspective on the theory application of destination image and CEB to hotel operations. From a practical perspective, hotel managers should carefully reconsider the primary drivers that attract tourists to visit the site and stay at their hotel. In addition, when developing promotional materials, managers should also consider key features in the photographic image to create a desirable destination image to attract tourists to visit and recommend the property to others.

This presentation introduces a methodological framework that analyzes a model of destination image formation (Baloglu & McCleary 1999; Beerli & Martin 2004). Specifically, the main aims of this study are to investigate what type of stimulus factors (information sources) are connected to the formation of destination image, and to explore if there is a connection between their strength of willingness to visit a destination and their patterns to associate with the destination. The study employs an advanced nonparametric Bayesian relational model (Glückstad, Herlau, Schmidt, Rzepka, Araki and Mørup 2013; Mørup, Glückstad, Herlau & Schmidt, 2014) for a two-steps analysis . The first step attempts to segment consumers according to patterns of attributes consumers associate with three arbitrary selected destinations. The second step statistically analyzes latent structural patterns per segment by contrasting two independent datasets, one consisting of information sources and members of a segment and another consisting of destination attributes and the members of the segment. The results of two-steps analysis demonstrated that patterns of attributes respondents associate with the three selected destinations differ across individuals and the applied method enabled to segment respondents according to the differences, and consumers’ associations, their willingness to visit the destinations and types of information sources they have accessed to learn about the destinations are connected to each other.

The tourism industry in Hong Kong is a substantial pillar of Hong Kong’s economic development because it has been a beneficiary of tourism revenues and employment opportunities. According to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Hong Kong accommodated 60.8 million ever-high visitors flow in 2014 (Hong Kong Tourism Commission, 2014). As three major inbound markets Mainland China, Japan, and the United States have been among the top five inbound visitors since 2003. A report of the Hong Kong Tourist Satisfaction Index (Tourist Satisfaction Index, 2014) indicated that Japanese and Korean tourists’ overall satisfaction with Hong Kong decreased from 70.11% in 2012 to 66.98% in 2014. Americans recorded the highest satisfaction level concerning experience in Hong Kong as a tourist destination, awarding it 81.8%. Moreover, the tourism industry in Hong Kong has recently relied heavily on mainland Chinese tourists as the major target group; this group comprises nearly 70% of all overnight visitors (Hong Kong Tourism Board, 2015). These three oversea markets have played an essential role towards Hong Kong tourism industry in past decade.

All aspects of individual consumer as well as situational affecting on decisions are influenced by the social and cultural structure in which the consumer is embedded. Recently, there has been a growing worldwide phenomenon whereby tourists visit an attraction or destination as a result of that place being portrayed or represented in the popular cultural forms of the media that are not directly related with tourism promotion or marketing. A number of studies have suggested that such portrayals and features of mass media can act as powerful forces that stimulate tourism demand (Beeton, 2001). Representations and images of tourist destinations constructed by popular cultural forms of media such as films, television and literature play a significant role in influencing people’s holiday decision-making process (Iwashita, 2006). Where trade in images, expectations, dreams, and fantasies are made in tourism (Selwyn, 1996), those media representations and images of tourist destinations play a significant role in influencing people’s decision-making process. The tourism industry also is increasing appliance of images that are drawn from popular culture associated with places to promote tourist destinations and to distinguish themselves from each other. While these researches contribute to the understanding of the influence of pop culture on tourism phenomena, only few studies have investigated on the actual linkage between the pop culture and tourism perceptions/behaviors. The reason why pop culture involvement can be related to the actual intention to visit is due to the fandom created relating to the pop culture. The notion of fandom has been put forward in order to understand the link in between the pop culture and the mass audience in diverse realms (Couldry, 2007). Fandom in recent years have been understood to dismiss the negative view of pathological and the stem for alienating qualities of modern society, and accepted as a phenomena widely spread in post-industrial societies (Jenson, 1992). It is then when transitional moment takes place, in the head and heart of the fan or tourist, that the fascination begins which provides the motivation to visit the locations (Reijnders, 2011). With such cultural industries in modern society constantly produce countless contents that can be utilized as objects of fandom, resulting in actual visit to a place associated with a specific destination serving as an effective strategy for building popular cultural capital in modern society. It was therefore decided to investigate this phenomenon in more depth through empirical research to investigate how and to what extent popular cultural forms of the media (those not directly associated with tourism and destination marketing) have an effect on international tourism, and future, to identify what roles they play in influencing tourists from emerging market in terms of their travel destination image and their perception about places to visit within the chosen destination. The phenomenon in this study focuses on the Korean wave, so called Hallyu, as it is one of the pop culture phenomenon that has gained much recognition across not only within Asian countries but also recently in Western countries via pop songs, soap operas, movies, and other forms of mass media entertainment. In this study, diffusion model suggested by Rogers (1995) was used. The diffusion of Rogers’s innovation framework is proving flexible enough to conceptualize many kinds of social change, including change through processes of public dialogue and civic participation, change within organizations, as well as change through public agenda setting and media effects. Many studies have incorporated diffusion theory to explain such cultural phenomenon to gain more enrich result, however, no other studies have looked into the degree of diffusion stage in a macro level according to the regions. However, to obtain the overall view of the diffusion of such pop culture, it is needed to see the diffusion process proceeding globally as even the same fandom may differ in characteristics based on not only the diffusion stage but also its distinctive characteristics of social system. As a result, according to the diffusion stage of Hallyu, it is expected to differ in formation and perception on destination image. Previous studies identify destination image into cognition and affect which are two conceptually different, yet highly correlated components (Lee, 2008). The cognitive component leading to some internally accepted attributes, a more or less derived from factual information. On the other hand, the affective component relates to a diffusive feeling, which can become important when a decision to travel is actually considered (Russel, 1980). Such image constructed by tourists contains an individual or group perception of a particular place (Fakeye and Crompton 1991). It is expected that the image construction will vary according to the stage of the diffusion. This study incorporates diffusion theory to develop a better understanding of the diffusion process and the current situation of the Korean Wave globally to see whether such diffusion process varies according to region. Then, the effect of such difference in diffusion stages on the intention to visit the destination country was investigated. Thus, preliminary research was conducted first to see the Korean Wave phenomenon globally. In order to analyze the diffusion stage thoroughly, three regions of Asia, America, and Europe were selected. According to the diffusion degree of the Korean wave, seven representative countries were elected regarded to the regions. Along with literatures, in-depth interviews were conducted. The semi-structured form with an interview guide method was presented with reflexive interviewing techniques in order to ensure comprehensiveness (Athos & Gabarro, 1978). Then, a survey was conducted to examine the effect of pop culture involvement on formation and perception of destination image in China and Russia. Choice of countries is not only resulting from recognition as the potential future powerhouse in industry, but because it is the two countries take place as one of the highest increase in the number of tourists visiting Korea recently (KCTI, 2013). In addition, most importantly, China represents to be in the highest stage of diffusion of Korean pop culture, and Russia as one of the lowest. Additionally, the moderating effect of travel intention and travel behavior was preceded. From this, it aims to provide deeper understanding implications for targeting tourists. The hypotheses were tested with a data set developed from field survey using only online survey. Of the 265 samples collected, 8 were returned incomplete. An additional 18 samples were deleted for further analysis, as the answers were unusable. In total 239 samples – 120 and 119 samples from China and Russia respectively – were subjected for final analysis. The result in Study 1 revealed some commonalities and differences among regions. Overall, uniqueness was what made people first be interested. It was mostly pursued by young women yet those who are sometimes extremist. Thus, being open-minded to other cultures was found to be important when accepting other cultures. Moreover, it revealed that it impacts on national image to be more positive as it replaces the negative image related to war and North Korea. However, despite some commonalities, distinctive differences were disclosed among regions, especially between Asian countries and Western countries. In terms of Asia, it was found that cultural similarities have influenced the early acceptance of Korean pop culture. It has been spread since 1997, through television mostly with sensuous contents that were unique in other countries. The contents were mostly appealing to women as the characters shown in soap opera were different to others. This is very different to Europe of America where the diffusion starting in the mid 2000 through the Internet. Uniqueness captured consumers, yet in a different way from Asian countries. The easy going and entertaining aspect was the appealing factor, with word of mouth and human power was what influenced in introduction of Korean pop culture. In addition, those who were into Japanese culture were easily approached to Korean pop culture. The diffusion stage was considered to be less than 10%, with very young women interested with comparison with Asia where it was about 70%. Moreover, it was found that Asian consumers are interested in Korean brand products, such as cosmetics and clothing, and Western consumers are more interested in culture and food. Then, on the survey proceeded where China and Russia was chosen based on the preliminary qualitative research as a two different stage of diffusion according regions/countries, t-test provided evidence to support the claim that depending the diffusion stage of pop culture, the effect on formation and perception of destination image differs. A significant differences were obtained in pop culture involvement, destination image (cognitive and affective), and on visit intention. Based on the t-test statistics for Korean pop culture involvement (t = 8.491, p < .000), the cognitive image (t = -3.341, p < .001), the affective image (t = 2.050, p < .05), and visit intention (t = 2.072, p < .05) were significant. Thus, when highly involved in Korean pop culture, rather than cognitive image, consumers are more likely to be involved with affective image which relates to the actual visit intention. The results corroborated several hypothesized relationships, popular culture involvement in accordance to nation affect the destination image and perception. When more highly involved, more positively it relates to affective image and the visitation intention. The findings reported in this study have managerial implications. One is that as the relation differs according to the diffusion stage, spreading pop culture may not yield visible output instantly, yet as it relates to the actual visitation intention, international pop culture activities should be supported. Second, as shown from the diffusion process globally, distinctive characteristics of each culture should be considered more when spreading such sub-culture. Lastly, therefore, it can be suggested, that according to the countries, different approach should be made in order to induce tourist from other countries. However, this study focuses more on the macro level of the phenomenon. Therefore, future research is needed to provide more evidence on the micro level and more in-depth research. In addition, this study precedes empirical study only in China and Russia. Therefore, more diverse countries should be explored and compared.

During the past 40 years a huge number of studies investigated destination positioning and images from the tourists’ perspective, but by far fewer studies have been conducted from the destination managers’ perspective. In addition, few articles benchmark image positions between multiple destinations and their projections on marketing material. In order to generalize the results to larger geo-scopes, it is important to include a substantial number of destinations for analysis and take the influences of geography into consideration. The current study focuses on exploring positions of intended (planned) destination images. The primary aim is to compare the intended tourism image that is originally developed by destination managers of the sub-provincial districts in China and identify patterns of similarity and uniqueness behind. The research findings are expected to: (1) inform local destination managers in China about the current status of their destination tourism image positions compared with other destinations; and (2) give suggestions to the tourism administrations of both sub-provincial level and higher levels on how to better understand and coordinate the districts under their authorities and how to develop effective image positioning and projection strategies. In China, substitutability among tourism destinations like cities is growing, which is more obvious among those having same regional contexts, source markets and similar tourism products (Han & Tao, 2005). One remedy against this tendency is the development of strong image positions that are distinctive from other competing destinations. However, Chinese destination managers are facing several problems regarding positioning and marketing their destination images. First, the existing image positions of many destinations are unclear (Chen, 2008). Han and Tao (2005) point out that tourism images of many city destinations − in particular the mid-sized and small cities − are still on the organic stage and lack of systematic planning. What is more important is that many destination managers have not recognized the importance of image positioning and the benefits of induced image (Chen, 2008; Han & Tao, 2005). Second, some destinations have unrealistic image positions because they neglected market research opportunities and carried out positioning in a blind way (Chen, 2008). For instance, many destination managers think that destination image is the same as creative initiatives or slogans rather than the rational result from a systematic positioning process (Han & Tao, 2005). In China, DMOs are government departments traditionally. In other words, China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) is the DMO for whole China; Provincial Tourism Administrations (PTAs) manage provincial-level destinations and Municipal or County Tourism Administrations (RTAs) are the DMOs for sub-provincial districts (Feng, Morrison & Ismail, 2003; Li & Wang, 2010). In this study, when talking about China, “DMO” is exchangeable with “tourism administration”; and “destination manager” refers to the “senior officer working in the tourism administration”. District, province and region are three spatial levels frequently and consistently used in this study. In terms of the size, region is the largest whereas district is the smallest. A region contains one or several provinces. A province has several districts under its authority. In this research, the unit of analysis is sub-provincial districts that belong to provinces. The provinces are sorted into different geographical regions that are characterized by different categories of endowed tourism resources. This study adopts the most recent scheme developed by Song (1994). He classifies the tourism destinations in China into 10 TRG Regions and 77 sub-TRG Regions. TRG Regions consist of complete provinces. While the sub-TRG Regions focusing on market appeal may contain districts across provinces. Table 1 summarizes the features of the 10 TRG Regions and their included provinces; the regions names are the abbreviations of their included provinces. This research investigates intended image positions from the destination managers’ perspectives for sub-provincial districts in China. There are 27 provinces1 and 365 sub-provincial districts (SP Districts) in China. The 365 SP Districts are classified into 9 groups according to the scheme of tourism resources geographical regions (TRG Regions) reviewed before. Due to the different administration systems, the 10th region including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau is excluded from this research. 122 out of 365 SP Districts are selected. The sampling method combines multistage sampling, stratified sampling and simple random sampling. For only 83 districts (68%) relevant documents could be retrieved online. 48 documents represent the “Tourism Development Master Plans” and 35 documents the “12th Twelve-Five Year Tourism Development Plans”. Six districts did not mention any type of intended image positions in their development plans. The content about intended destination image position(s) – i.e. the most essential image position(s) for a district as a whole destination to differentiate itself from others – are identified from the tourism plans. The extracted content about image positions often appears in the formats of short sentences or phrases that contain more than one concept. Thus, the original extracted content is processed to identify all included image concepts that are distinct from each other. The content analysis yielded a spread of 164 different image items with only 189 occurrences for a total of 77 districts. So, on average, there are not more than about 2.5 image positions that can be identified in the tourism master plans or development plans of the sub-provincial districts. 20% of these plans use only one image concept; 38% two items, 26% three different items, 12% four and only 5% are using five items. To make this list more comprehensible the items were aggregated in two steps to 48 image factors. In almost each tourism master or development plan which discusses positioning of the district through promoting destination images cognitive or functional terms are used. About one third of these documents uses affective or psychological features. Yet, two thirds of the intended district images are completely lacking any affective element that could help identifying appealing spots on the touristic map among the functionally loaded clutter. Reviewing the coverage of intended image items through the conceptual lenses proposed by Tapachai and Waryszak (2000) it becomes evident that only functional, emotional and epistemic aspects can be found as targeted image elements. Travellers, though, are also using social and conditional criteria when it comes to destination choice (Zins, 2010; Zins & Prompitak, 2010). Despite the relatively scarce usage of intended image positions for each Chinese sub-provincial district it is worthwhile to condense the image profiles of these 77 districts further. The 2-way profile data of 48 image factors for 77 sub-provincial districts were subject to a non-hierarchical cluster procedure to identify similarities among the districts. Considering both, the homogeneity gain of additional clusters and the relative simplicity of interpretation (expressed by the wSSI) a solution with ten different groups of districts was accepted. A sketch of the main characteristics is depicted in Table 2. The largest image profile group pools 24 different districts (31%) from 7 different TRG regions. The other larger groups (number 10, 4, 5 and 2 in descending order of similarity to number 7) do not exhibit one single lead region which means that the TRG regions share a multitude of targeted image positions. The larger TRG regions with quite a number of districts (BTHS, GFH, SJZAJ and YGG; together 49 out of 77 districts) show some gravity into the profiles 7, 4 and 5 (cf. Table 2). However, the frequency is not large enough to claim that a particular region is uniquely represented by one of the identified condensed image profiles. The majority of districts within one TRG region shows targeted image positions that are more common with districts of other TRG regions. Overall, the geographic spread of relatively similar district images is larger across provinces than across regions, which appears plausible. Destination managers may perceive threats from their neighbouring districts that share similar context images and source markets. This drives them to develop differentiated positions in order to prevent direct competition. Officially, higher-level DMOs like provincial tourism administrations have to coordinate the tourism planning of the lower-level districts (Tourism Law 2013; GSTP, 2003).

This research examines the affect of destination image factors on revisit intention of domestic tourists at Ba Ria Vung-Tau (BRVT), by questioning directly 510 domestic tourists. The convenient sampling method is used in dividing the crowds into four groups; the four main surveyed areas in BRVT are: Vung Tau, Long Hai-Phuoc Hai, Xuyen Moc and Con Dao. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies were utilized. A focus group of 10 domestic tourists was set up to review and explore the various factors as well as the conceptual model. An in-depth interview with 12 participants was developed to fine-tune measurement items. The questionnaire applied a 5-point Likert scale. Checking the reliability by Cronbach’s Alpha, exploratory factor analyzing and linear multiple regression were used with the SPSS program. The results show that there are eight main destination image factors affecting domestic tourists revisit intention to BRVT using linear regression and arranged by decreasing importance: Infrastructure, Variety Seeking, Accessibility, Local food, Atmosphere, Environment, Price Value, Leisure and Entertainment. From that, the research offers some suggestions and policy recommendations for the tourism business and provincial policy-makers to identify the main issues and develop better customer services to increase domestic tourists’ revisit intention.

The study aims to assess the impact of destination image, satisfaction and loyalty of tourists at mountain destinations in Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam. The study involves questionnaire surveys and multivariate data analysis methods (Cronbach Alpha test, EFA, CFA, SEM). Research results from 500 tourists in the mountain destinations of Thanh Hoa province demonstrate that all factors have imposed a positive impact on tourist satisfaction, specifically: The most influential factor is Natural features, followed by Human factors while the least influential factor is Infrastructure; On the other hand, research results also demonstrate that satisfaction has a substantial impact on tourist loyalty. Based on the research results, we also proposed some key solutions to enhance the destination image, thereby contributing to increased satisfaction and loyalty of tourists, including: (i) Promoting Natural Tourism Resources. (ii) Raising Awareness of Environmental Protection. (iii) Building Local Cultural Identity. (iv) Building Exclusive Tourist Products. (5) Strengthening the Support of Local Authorities for Tourism Activities. (vi) Developing a Price Policy.

The purpose of this study is to describe how nature-based ecotourism motivation of ecotourists influences destination image and satisfaction of ecotourists. In order to achieve the above purposes, the study carried out a literature study and an empirical analysis. Based on the obtained data through the literature study, the study designed a model for the empirical study. The results of this study are as follows. First, returns to nature, knowledge. fitness and escape as ecotourism motivation of ecotourist had a positive effect on each ecotourism destination image, such as cognitive and affective image. However, effect of novelty on cognitive image for destination had not significant results. Second, ecotourism destination image, such as cognitive and affective image, had a positive effect on ecotourism satisfaction of ecotourists. The results of the article provide implications for strategies for promoting ecotourism destination and suggest some guidelines for the eco-education of tourists.