Search results

The process of understanding a tourist begins with an extensive evaluation of tourist’s perceptions about a destination. Though destination image has been widely discussed in tourism literature since the 1970s, little attention has been given to organic image despite its relative significance. First, this study aims to clear the existing ambiguity in the cognitive component of destination image by organizing and structuring the extant literature.

This exploratory study then seeks to identify the salient organic image attributes in tourists’ consideration for travel options through the application of repertory test. Respondents’ statements on 25 competing destinations in Madhya Pradesh, India were transcribed verbatim for analysis. A measure of frequencies and commonality among 12 construct themes was then carried out.

Along with history, heritage and culture, this study found tourists to have considered organic image attributes associated with destination stereotypes as important discriminators between competing leisure tourist destinations. Moreover, the elicitation of context-specific attributes along with a note in the pattern of tourist responses highlighted the merits of repertory test when presented with different category triads.

This study differs from other organic image studies as it evaluates the prominence of organic image in the context of leisure tourism. Being one of the few studies to have extensively discussed the organic image component, this study contributes to the progression of organic image literature.

This paper aims to test the general validity of a hierarchical model of country image conceptualizations across countries that differ in socio-economic development and distance to the exporting country.

Representative consumer samples in Germany, France, China and Thailand (N ∼ 1,000 per country) completed an online survey on three levels of country image regarding Denmark and attitudes towards buying an organic food product from Denmark. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

The hierarchical country image model fitted the data well in the two European countries, but not in the two Asian countries. It appears that the hierarchical relationships proposed by the model require a high level of familiarity with and knowledge of the origin country and the product type.

The application scope of the model is considerably narrower than implied by earlier research. Further research should combine data from a number of sources to investigate the model’s application further.

Exporters must pay attention to both the general image of their country and the image of their country with regard to their specific product category, as this impacts consumer product evaluations.

International trade and the success of export strategies ultimately depend on consumer acceptance in importing countries. This study demonstrates how consumer perception of imported products is affected by the exporting country’s image, which may be more or less elaborate and differentiated. It gives exporters new insight into how they can make their marketing effective when entering markets.

Assesses the relative saliency of image attributes associated with history, heritage and culture in shaping the perceptions of places as tourism destinations. Such images tend to have been formed over a long period of time and result from exposure to communication processes largely outside marketing's core sphere of influence such as education, literature and the arts. Images formed in this way are referred to in this paper as organic images. The research used the repertory grid technique developed by George A. Kelly in the context of Personal Construct Theory combined with depth interviews to elicit the attributes associated with the images of 25 destinations in the UK. The study identified 11 categories of image attribute. Those associated with a destination's history, heritage and culture were found to be the second most salient category. The implications of these findings are discussed.

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of two types of social media videos used for destination image development: induced/commercial-oriented content and organic content (where content is made without commercial interest, such as vlogs classified as user-generated content).

Experimental research using “Emotive EEG” (electroencephalogram) in a controlled environment was conducted with 30 participants (20 males, 10 females), age range 18 to 26. Emotive EEG recording was performed while the participants watched both types of video clips. Test results for both groups indicate that induced content is preferred over organic content.

This study opens up future research avenues where neuromarketing’s “Marketer Friendly” EEG equipment can be applied to the customer selection process.

Marketing analysts can gauge the interest and response of customers on different types of social media video content for destination marketing based on the findings of this study.

Studies about destination image have been discussed extensively in the literature due to its impact on tourist behavior. Despite the significant number of contributions, existing models are outdated in the context of globalization. This chapter synthesizes relevant literature and evaluates the effects of social media on destination image formation. Built on the seminal work by Gartner and that of Tasci and Gartner, the chapter extends the existing understanding with a conceptual model. The construct posits that, with the social media sites as the agent, an overall conative image of a destination can be formed by the overlap of provision and evaluation of cognitive and affective information by and among suppliers, consumers, and third parties.

This article aims to provide details of recent research into image sensing technologies.

Following an introduction, this article discusses image sensing research involving a range of new materials, novel designs and signal processing schemes. It concludes with a brief discussion of a potentially game-changing technology, the quanta image sensor.

This shows that image sensing is the topic of a major academic and corporate research effort. It involves a diversity of technologies and seeks to yield devices with enhanced or unique characteristics.

This article provides a timely review of recently reported research into image sensing.

This study aims to reveal consumer perceptions towards organic food, particularly emphasizing the confusion and vagueness in the public eye.

In total, 21 well-educated and relatively high-income consumers were selected as cases of the study. The knowledge about the organic food concept and organic food preferences were analyzed through the grounded theory analysis. In this analysis, ten categories which are shopping from the close circle, the product information attitude, do it yourself (DIY), true and false facts and dilemmas, information sources, the most preferred organic products, perception of organic food indicator, market place trends, organic food orientation reasons, and attitude toward the organic products/producers were detected as the main issues.

The authors chose the cases from well-educated people who have a relatively high income, and it is seen that the knowledge levels of consumers are low regarding organic foods. This low-level knowledge becomes apparent in confused and erroneous answers and actions. The confusion over the organic food concept and the institutional image appear as two main findings of the study. The authors named this false fact as organic confusion and dilemmas in this analysis. According to the study’s results, there is a considerable amount of confusion over healthy and natural food contexts.

This study aims to bring a comprehensive delineation to the general perception of the organic food concept in society. And it reveals a detailed feedback for the institutions and companies on how to solve organic food problems such as confusion, institutional image problem, and false facts. Although organic product knowledge is shown as a critical factor in many studies in the literature, the number of studies that examine this situation in depth is insufficient.

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the organic destination image of Kavos, as portrayed through irresponsible tourism-related behaviours on “reality” TV programmes, with its complex image according to members of the local community.

A thematic analysis was undertaken of four reality television programmes. This was compared with the qualitative data gathered from depth interviews.

The portrayal of tourism in Kavos focuses on only one narrow segment of young British high-season tourists. Thus, the destination image is unbalanced, neglects changing patterns of tourism throughout the year and neglects various other stakeholders in the destination’s image formation process.

A limitation of this study is that it explored reality television programmes that focused on Kavos and featured a younger demographic. Further studies could look to include a range of reality programmes from different geographic locations and, include other demographics.

A more holistic image, created and communicated by those responsible for managing the destination, could go some way to ameliorating the disparities between what is portrayed on reality television and what really happens in the resort.

Most media portrayal about Kavos focuses only on irresponsible tourist behaviours. This paper explores the physical and social aspects of place-making, an approach that thus becomes more inclusive of considering a place from the perspective of both its permanent and transient inhabitants.

By including in the authors’ data sources the under-researched phenomenon of reality television programmes, along with insights gained from members of the local community, this study makes a number of contributions to: the way destinations are theorised and conceptualised; and to the way tourism destinations with negative images may be approached both theoretically and in practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the analysis of the potential contribution of festivals in generating a destination image through social media (particularly Twitter).

This study follows a multi-method approach by recollecting, analyzing and mixing quantitative and qualitative techniques. The authors focus on the case of Vic (Spain), analyzing the destination’s image as projected by different users (administration, private sector, particular users, residents) on Twitter in relation to an international musical festival, El Mercat de Música Viva de Vic (the Vic Live Music Market).

From a theoretical perspective, the study’s results advocate a reconsideration of the role of social media in the processes of creating a destination’s image. It is important to take into account the need to perform a specific analysis for each platform and consider how it operates and which stakeholders prevail by weight, by the clusters they pertain to and by their elicited descriptions. In the particular case of Twitter, the image-formation continuum generated by different actors through different sources is present here on one single platform.

This study is limited in terms of being based on only one social media site, and it would be very interesting to complement it by analyzing other relevant social media platforms.

From a practical point of view, this presents a challenge to destination managers to learn how to work on each specific platform in order to oversee the different destination visions and their resources.

From the results, the authors affirm that destination-branding analyses now need a platform-specific approach as well as an in-depth stakeholder analysis, since it is no longer possible to separate producers and consumers in brand image creation. Branding is becoming a more inclusive and collaborative process.

This study aims to examine the moderating role of private label product type (organic vs non-organic) on the relationships between trust transfer, price fairness, perceived value and brand loyalty.

The empirical data were gathered with the structured questionnaire from two groups of respondents who had previously purchased organic and conventional private label products. The direct, mediating and moderating effects were analysed with structural equation modelling.

The findings confirmed the trust transfer between the retail store and private label brand. The results revealed that both store trust and trust in private label brand positively influence price fairness and which, in turn, elicits higher perceived value. Perceived value was also found to influence private label brand loyalty. The multi-group analyses revealed that the magnitude of the trust transfer was accentuated by organic food private label. Furthermore, the relation between trust in private label brand, price fairness and perceived value was also greater in organic food private label.

This study utilized the trust transfer theory and equity theory as a theoretical foundation to provide novel insights into the moderating influence of private label product type on the relationships between the antecedents of private label brand loyalty. The results of the research can help retailers to develop successful private label brand marketing strategies.