A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF TOURISM DESTINATION ...

Nevertheless the price tourists pay to visit and enjoy a destination experience has a
role to play in determining the choice travellers make. TDCA is determined by both
price and non-price factors. Given the evidence of price sensitivity of the travel
demand, destinations need to monitor their price competitiveness relative to
alternative destinations. Proposition 5 is derived, hence.
P5. The ability of a destination to attract visitors and compete internationally is
associated with its reputation and image and is moderated by the perceived cost of
the experience.
Outcomes of TDCA
Pizam, Neumann and Reichel (1978) defined tourist satisfaction as ‘ the result of the
interaction between a tourist’s experience at the destination area and the expectations
he had about the destination’ based on the Expectations-disconfirmation paradigm.
Tourist satisfaction is central in destinations as it determines tourist’s intention to
revisit and recommend the destination to friends and relatives. Pizam and Ellis
(1999), argue that tourist satisfaction can be used to measure competitive strengths
and weaknesses by determining tourist perceptions of competitive choices.
Destination attractiveness is related to perceived satisfaction (Ferrario 1979a; Pizam
et al. 1978).
Tourist destination image’s (TDI) importance is universally acknowledged as it affect
people’s subjective perception, behaviour and the choice of a destination (Walmsley
and Young 1998). Destination image is related to destination selection intention and
tourist satisfaction. As such, image refers to the perceptions of tourists at a destination
and these correspond to the perceived contribution of the different tourism services
available, and consequently the destination experience. TDI is also related to
destination positioning, competitive and strategic image (Ahmed and Krohn 1990)
and is thus a concept that can help to explain competitiveness in tourism.
Strategic management literature abounds with organisational performance measures
like profitability, return on investment, return on assets, productivity of human
resources, there has been a limited success in the attempt to come up with the
measures of destination performance. For the overall destination performance, various
statistical measures have been proposed. For example, total arrivals and the associated
measures like the visitors (a) growth rate, average length of stay; (b) total destination
and (c) employment created as measures of TDCA. More meaningful measures like
net tourism receipts and the per capita net tourism receipts have also been proposed
(Jayawardema and Ramajeesingh 2003).
Conclusion
Though there have been advances in modelling competitiveness in tourism there is
little empirical evidence to support the models proposed by researchers. More
importantly the dual perspective of TDCA has not been explored. The symmetrical
approach to tourism destination evaluation should be a starting point in harmonising
the interests of the destination as well as those of the tourists. The results of such an
approach could be used to sell the destination interests to visitors as well as the
interests of visitors to the destination operators. Researchers now need to move from
conceptual to empirical validation of the proposed models. Initially the challenge
should be to investigate the relationship between the identified variables and how
strongly they influence the attractiveness and competitiveness of tourism destinations.
The proposed model, as shown in Figure 1 can be tested using Structural Equation
Conceptual Papers / Marketing Theory Track 644