Tourists image formation processes

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Tourists image formation processes

• Branding Market Development
• 20 February 2007

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Content

• Rounding off last lecture
• Image formation among tourists
• Destination choice image, what is a
  destination image, how is it formed, how is it
  used
• How to meassure image
• Image formation a practical exercise

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Source Gartner (1993) pp.194-195.  
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Source Echtner Ritchie (1991) p.6.
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People make sense of places through

• Planned intervention
• product offers, marketing
• Their own others use of place
• personal experience hearsay
• Place representation
• films, novels, media reports

(Kavaratzis Ashworth 2005)
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People make sense of place through

• ..its history that gives a destination its
  colourful past in which a sense of place is
  created (Durie et al. 2005 p.44)
• architecture, literature, food, landscape, music,
  film
• visitors learn to read Scotland afresh in ways
  that resonate with their own times (ibid. p.48)
• authenticity vs. accuracy

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A cultural image model (Therkelsen 2003)
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Network of cultural images an example
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Cultural images shortcut to positioning

• useing the cliché as a hook on which to hang
  more detail (Morgan Pritchard, 2001, p.275).
• avoid cognitive dissonance (Gartner 1993)
  exploit existing images, not total revolution
  (Smith 2005)

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How to measure image familiarity-favourability
measurements

• Familiarity
• Never heard of
• Heard of a little bit
• Know a little amount
• Know a fair amount
• Know very well

• Favourability
• Very unfavourable
• Somewhat unfavourable
• Indifferent
• Somewhat favourable
• Very favourable

(Kotler et al 1999)
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How to measure image semantic differentials
The image of Copenhagen
(Kotler et al. 1999)
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How to measure image Qualitative interviews
(Sayre 2001)
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Image study in practise - Aalborg

• Two groups
• Experienced Aalborg residents
• New residents / commuters
• Assignment
• If Aalborg was an animal, what animal would it
  be?
• With point of departure in this question the
  groups are to identify four characteristics which
  summarise their understanding of Aalborg as a
  tourism destination.

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Further readings

• Kotler et al (1999) Marketing Places Europe
  Harlow Prentice Hall
• Sayre S. (2001) Qualitative methods for
  marketplace research. Thousand Oaks Sage.
• Jensen O.B. 2005. Branding the Contemporary City
  Urban branding as Regional Growth Agenda?
  Plenary paper for Regional Studies Association
  Conference, Aalborg 28-31 May 2005.
  www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/events/
  aalborg05/jensen.pdf.