Marketing of Australia to Malaysian Consumers

Abstract

In many contexts, tourism is a potentially major economic contributor. Promotion is particularly important in international tourism in order to realize its potential and strategic positioning in an effective way. The benefits inherent in the consumption of international tourism services are primarily experiential. Not only does a tourist engage in personal leisure pursuits but also shapes the consumer behaviour of others at the vacation destination (Padgett and Douglas, 1997). Before the actual consumption, the tourist consumer envisions these experiences reasoned upon positive emotions that the destination evokes in his or her mind. Because behaviour is often the result of such perceptions (Lindquist, 1974-1975), the traveller's choice of a given destination depends largely on the favourableness of his or her image of that destination (Goodrich, 1978; Woodside and Lysonski, 1989; Chon, 1991; Baloglu and McCleary, 1999). While manufacturing distributes products to markets, tourism moves markets to destinations (Gunn, 1988). These characteristics of business phenomenon present special challenges and require careful promotional responses. Our study examines the image of Australia as a tourist destination in Malaysia.

Key Words:

• Country image
• image
• image dimensions
• first-time tourists
• touring experience
• vacation characteristics
• image components