An inquiry of perceived image of urban tourism destination through tourist consumption and movement pattern

Abstract

Identifying the factor that influence the tourist behavior and their decision making process may give a vast information for local authorities in promoting their tourism destination. Destination image is one of the vital factors that persuade tourist to visit the destination. Destination image can be interpreted into three dimensions which are cognitive, affective and conative. Promoting an image that not represents the actual destination will not satisfy tourist perceived value, expectation and loyalty toward the tourism destination. This scenario will hugely affect tourist level of satisfaction and expectation that also influence their tendency to revisit the destination. In order to promoting a good tourism destination image, tourism planner and local authorities must recognize first how the tourist consume the destination. Different types of tourist reflect different types of consumption style and different consumption style reflect difference in movement pattern. Understand how the tourist consumes and move in the destination can give knowledge to authorities in developing a destination images that can match the tourist satisfaction, expectation and of course revisit the destination. Using both qualitative and quantitative method in collecting data will give a better framework to the tourism planner in developing destination image. In-depth interview tell the planner on how actually the tourist construct their cognitive, affective and conative toward the destination. Applying Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) and Visualization Method will indicate the tourist expectation and satisfaction by relatively also show how tourist consume and move within the destination. In the prospect of developing countries mainly in the South-East Asia region, such knowledge can help the tourism authorities to develop and promoting quality destination images based on the data acquired from how actually tourist perceived the place and behave at the destination level so the product that been offer will give benefit from various side.