The Importance Of Destination Image

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3. IMAGE OF DESTINATION
Destination image is one of the most important factors in promoting and market-ing a good tourism destination. It is also an important component affects future tourist’s decision making process and behaviors. In this chapter, the author pre-sented the definition, formation, measurement as well as the importance of desti-nation image.

3.1 Definition of destination image
Kolter had been defined the destination image as the impression, beliefs, ideas, and expression accumulated towards a place, and it is a personal perception of a place which can vary from one person to another. (Kolter, Haider &Rein, 1993, p42). And Sirgy mentioned that the destination image is composed of various at-tributes that can be divided in controllable attributes (destination product, price, place and
All three components (cognitive, affective, and conative) are closely related to the destination selection process as suggested by Gartner (Gartner.1993. p191-215.).
The destination image framework provided by Baloglu and McCleary consists of both cognitive /perceptual and affective evaluations determinates that influence the destination image. Cognitive/perceptual evaluation means beliefs or knowledge of destination attributes whereas the affective evaluation means feel-ings or attachments towards the destination attributes. The framework shows that factors influencing the destination image are personal and stimulus.
According to Balogu and McClearly’s framework, the personal factors affecting destination image are psychological which consists of tourism values, motivations and personality, and social factors included age, education, and marital status. The stimulus factors affecting destination image are the amount and type of infor-mation sources as well as the distribution of previous experiences.

3.3 The importance of destination

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