The moderating role of past experience in the formation of a tourist destination's image and in tourists’ behavioural intentions

Abstract

The aim of this work is to understand the moderating effects of tourists’ prior experiences of a given destination on the process of image formation (in both its cognitive and affective dimensions) for that destination and on the influence that the image – together with the tourist's satisfaction – has on their loyalty-driven behaviours as expressed in the intention to recommend. To achieve this aim, a sample of 512 tourists was used and a multi-group analysis performed, distinguishing between first-time and repeat visitors. The findings reveal that experience has a moderating effect on the formation of the cognitive image and on the influence of the tourist's satisfaction on the overall image of the tourist destination. These findings have significant management implications in the context of helping to create and appropriately manage the image of a tourist destination.

Keywords:

• destination image
• cognitive image
• affective image
• past experience
• satisfaction
• intention to recommend

Acknowledgements

Study carried out thanks to financing received from research project “Effectiveness of the Internet as a information source in tourism destination selection” by the University of Granada.

Notes

The conclusion is similar if using the comparison based on the Satorra–Bentler chi-square (χ² _{diff_SB} = 14.20; df = 6; p = 0.03).