RESEARCH NOTES AND REPORTS

This Department publishes research notes, conference reports, reports on the work of public agencies and associations, field (industry) reports, and other relevant topics and timely issues. Contributions to this department are submitted to its two Associate Editors: Research Notes to Juergen Gnoth <jgnoth@ commerce.otago.ac.nz> and Conference Reports to Russell Smith <arasmith@ntu.edu.sg>. Unsolicited conference and agency reports will not be accepted.

RESEARCH NOTE

www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 715718, 2009 0160-7383/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain

TRACKING TOURISM DESTINATION IMAGE PERCEPTION

Samuel Seongseop Kim Sejong University, Korea Bob McKercher Hyerin Lee The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
One of the most prolic research topics in tourism revolves around identifying images for a particular tourist destination. Previous image research has proved the practical and theoretical signicance of image studies. Different types of destination image studies seek to assess image changes or differences in image perceptions between pre-visitors and post-visitors (Chon 1991); before and after trips (Grosspietsch 2006); before and after a mega-event (Kim and Morrison 2005), and between ideal and actual images (Botha, Crompton and Kim 1999). Previous studies indicating change in perception of image over time are susceptible to measurement frequency deciencies. Most studies measuring destination image are oneoff studies conducted at tourist sites (Kim and Morrison 2005; San Martin and Rodriguez del Bosque 2008), before arrival (Lin, Morais, Kerstetter and Hou 2008), or after the tourist has departed (Castro, Armario and Ruiz 2007). Thus, a survey approach is vulnerable to limitations of memory recall about a question asking expected or ideal image before the actual tour in order to compare it to actual image. As explained above, memory decay is likely to pose a problem with inaccurate answering and tourism experience varies according to passage of time (Li, Cheng, Kim and Petrick 2008). Thus, to overcome the problems associated with the measurement time and frequency, this study measures the image of Australia as a tourism destination as perceived by Korean tourists over three time periods: before, during, and after their tour in Australia. This study is an initial empirical
715

716

Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 715734

effort to keep track of image perceptions of tourists from departure toward a tourism destination to return to an origin using the same sample. In addition, this study compared cognitive image concepts and affective image concepts in tracking image change. This study established one hypothesis: There is a difference in perception of Australia before, during, and after visits. Items which show images of Australia as a tourism destination were developed from previous studies on image change and tourism destinations (Kim and Agrusa 2005; Kim and Morrison 2005). Besides reviewing previous studies, items which Australia is famous for such as health medicine and wool were included. A pretest through survey and in-depth interviews with a sample of thirty Korean tourists and three Australian package tour conductors was undertaken to test image items and revise them to convey the precise meaning. Items related to Australia were measured by allowing respondents to check their agreement-disagreement (7-point Likert-type scale) with statements indicating tourism destination attributes of Australia. The sample used in this study was taken from Korean tourists traveling to Australia on package tours. The data collection was undertaken by seven Korean tour conductors who lead tour groups to Australia from February 1 to April 25, 2005. This is one of the peak seasons for Koreans traveling to the South Pacic. The rst survey was administered onboard the aircraft while heading to Australia. The second survey was conducted on the second day of the package tour. The third survey was undertaken on the return ight to Korea or leaving for other South Pacic countries such as New Zealand and Fiji. Questionnaires were distributed to 450 tourists during each of these three intervals. A total of 303 useful questionnaires were used for statistical analyses after excluding respondents who skipped one or more survey rounds. Most of the respondents were female (61.4%), rst-time visitors (90.8%), aged between 50 and 69 (57.6%), college graduates (47.5%) and housewives (41.7%). The duration of their package tour was 910 days (91.2%) including destinations such as New Zealand and other South Pacic islands. Factor analyses of 19 cognitive and 20 affective image items listed on the second survey questionnaires were employed in order to delineate the underlying dimensions. Varimax rotation was used, whereas the principal components approach was used to extract the dimensions. The cut-off size of factor loadings which measure the correlation between the observed measurements and the factors was set as .40, which was higher than .32, as recommended by Tabachnick and Fidell (1996). The factor structure with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 included 19 cognitive image items. It accounted for 60.6% of the variance and the dimensions were labeled: development of tourism industry (transportation system is well developed, tourism industry is well developed, various festivals and events are hosted, there are various tourism resources, hotels are clean and spacious), environment (natural scenery is beautiful, natural environment is unpolluted, cities and tourist attractions are clean, tourism facilities are clean), social features (it is a fast growing country, it is a safe country, it is a modern country, Australian residents are kind), traditional features (it has various traditional cultures, cultural assets are well conserved, it is rich in historical tourism resources), and shopping and nightlife (night entertainment is well developed, Australian health medicine and wool are famous as shopping products, shopping price is expensive). The reliability alphas were higher than or close to .70 which is the standard recommended by Nunnally (1978). The factor analysis included 19 affective image items that generated four underlying dimensions where eigenvalues were greater than 1.0. The dimensions were termed new and active image (exciting, diverse, attractive, delicious, new, active, passionate), clean and benecial image (kind, conve-

Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 715734

717

nient, high quality, clean, satisfying), relaxation image (safe, relaxing, stable, comfortable), and negative image (expensive, trivial, out of order, crowded). The four dimensions explained 61.3% and the reliability alphas were higher than or close to the standard of .70. Table 1 displays the results of the use of the GLM with repeated measures to examine differences in perceived cognitive and affective image before, during and after visits to Australia. Signicant differences were found for two of the ve dimensions. The two dimensions which showed signicant difference were development of tourism industry (p < .01) and environment (p < .01). For example, with regard to the development of tourism industry dimensions, respondents were more positive about the Australian tourist industry and considered it more well-developed during and after their actual visit compared to before their visit. Signicant differences (p < .001) were shown for three of the four image dimensions regarding perception of affective image. Interestingly, the same pattern was observed for the three image dimensions where the highest mean score was found after the visit, followed by before the visit and during the visit. The results indicate that respondents affective perception of Australia did not improve during their visit. However, after the overall tour experience, a more positive affective image perception emerged compared to before and during the visit. When the magnitude of a change in image perception between the cognitive image and affective image measurements was compared, this study found that affective image was more volatile than cognitive images. This nding indicates tourists perception of affective image may change more easily according to emotional conditions or situations on a tour itinerary. On the other hand, cognitive images may last longer and be steadier than emotional images because cognitive formation is likely to be based on previous acquisition of knowledge or information related to a tourism destination (Martin and des Bosque 2008). Since there are few previous studies tracking image change over time using the same sample, results of this study are useful in understanding tourists perceptional ow according to their itinerary. Since this nding indicates uctuation in image perceptions over time, future studies are likely to consider multiple survey time points. In particular, consideration in timing of the survey is critical when

Table 1. Analysis of Images at Three Points in Time

Cognitive image domains Domain 1: Development of tourism industry Domain 2: Environment Domain 3: Social features Domain 4: Traditional features Domain 5: Shopping and nightlife Affective image domains Domain 1: New and active image Domain 2: Clean and benecial image Domain 3: Relaxation image Domain 4: Negative image Note: *p < .01.
**p

Before visit During visit After visit F-value 4.76 4.60 4.75 5.26*

p-value .005 .003 .299 .232 .240 p-value .000 .000 .000 .128

5.53 5.61 5.71 5.72* 4.88 4.83 4.95 1.21 4.15 4.04 4.11 1.46 4.55 4.50 4.60 1.43 Before visit During visit After visit F-value 4.63 4.52 4.72 8.90** 4.99 4.89 5.16 13.37** 5.07 3.52 5.03 3.57 5.25 3.64 9.04** 2.06

< .001.

718

Research notes and reports / Annals of Tourism Research 36 (2009) 715734

measuring affective image of a tourism destination. Further, there is likely to be a need of measuring more than once because tourists image perceptions vary over time.

REFERENCES
Botha, C., J. Crompton, and S. Kim 1999 Developing a Revised Competitive Position for Sun/Lost City, South Africa. Journal of Travel Research 37 (May):341352. Castro, C., E. Armario, and D. Ruiz 2007 The Inuence of Market Heterogeneity on the Relationship between a Destinations Image and Tourists Future Behavior. Tourism Management 28:175187. Chon, J. 1991 Tourism Destination Image: Marketing Implications. Tourism Management 12 (1):6872. Grosspietsch, M. 2006 Perceived and Projected Images of Rwanda: Visitor and International Tour Operator Perspectives. Tourism Management 27:225234. Kim, S., and J. Agrusa 2005 The Positioning of Overseas Honeymoon Destinations. Annals of Tourism Research 32 (4):887904. Kim, S., and A. Morrison 2005 Change of the Image of Korea as Perceived by Foreign Tourists Before and After the 2002 World Cup. Tourism Management 26 (2):233247. Li, X., C.-K. Cheng, H. Kim, and J. Petrick 2008 A Systematic Comparison of First-Time and Repeat Visitors via a Two-Phase Online Survey. Tourism Management 29:278293. Lin, C., D. Morais, D. Kerstetter, and J. Hou 2008 Examining the Role of Cognitive and Affective Image in Predicting Choice Across Natural, Developed, and Theme-Park Destinations. Journal of Travel Research 46 (November):183194. Martin, H., and I. des Bosque 2008 Exploring the CognitiveAffective Nature of Destination Image and The Role of Psychological Factors in its Formation. Tourism Management 28:263277. Nunnally, J. 1978 Psychometric Theory (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hall. San Martin, H., and I. A. Rodriguez del Bosque 2008 Exploring the Cognitive-Affective Nature of Destination Image and the Role of Psychological Factors in its Formation. Tourism Management 29:263277. Tabachnick, B., and L. Fidell 1996 Using Multivariate Statistics (3rd ed.). New York: HarperCollins College Publishers.

Samuel Seongseop Kim: Associate Professor, Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Sejong University Gunja-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, Korea. Email: <sskim@sejong.ac.kr>
Received 25 April 2008. Revised 17 April 2009. Accepted for publication 28 April 2009.

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2009.04.007