Health, Wellness and Tourism: healthy tourists, healthy business ...

Destination Image in the Context of Wellness Travel
Andreas H. Zins
Institute for Tourism and Leisure Studies
University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria
andreas.zins@wu.ac.at
Abstract
This study tries to give an answer to the question whether the images of destinations differ
across different travel contexts (wellness vs. sun & beach) and wellness and non-wellness
travelers respectively. This objective is demonstrated by considering two sets of destinations:
European and Asian countries which are specializing to a varying degree in wellness tourism.
In addition, the conceptualization of destination image follows the direction of an ‘overall
composite and gestalt impression’ summarized by Keaveney and Hunt (1992) which requires
also an adequate holistic measurement process. For this purpose the procedure outlined by
Tapachai and Waryszak (2000) for developing so-called proxy benefit prototypes for
describing the product category of a destination is replicated. Meaningful practical results
could be elaborated by profiling destination images of ten different countries from the
perspective of the above mentioned traveler segments. Plots from MDS and consecutive
property fitting procedures assisted in visualizing the results and competitive relations.
Keywords: Category-based processing, MDS, free-elicitation, consumption values
Introduction and Background
Repeatedly tourism scholars are reviewing scientific work related to destination image and its
measurement (Echtner and Ritchie 1993; Jenkins 1999; Gallarza, Saura and Garcia 2002; Pike
2002, 2007; Tasci, Gartner and Cavusgil 2007). Steve Pike’s review of about 260 articles on
destination image studies of the past 35 years confirms a rapidly increasing field of interest.
However, both of his analyses (Pike 2002, 2007) come to the conclusion that qualitative
methods are scarcely used and moreover that most of the studies are lacking a specific travel
context. Echtner and Ritchie (1993) strongly recommended using a combination of structured
and unstructured methods to completely capture destination images consisting of attributebased,
holistic, functional, psychological, unique and common characteristics. Many of the
more recent publications focused on the interrelationship between functional (cognitive) and
psychological (emotional, affective) aspects of destination images. Moreover, the discrepancy
between the mainstream conceptualization of the image construct and a matching
measurement carefully addressed by Keaveney and Hunt (1992) is not overcome
automatically. Similarly, the issue of travel context, particularly relevant when conceiving the
market as partitioned into segments, has not been considered appropriately for the
measurement of destination images.
Particular concerns have been raised as to the conceptualization and an appropriate
measurement of destination image. Concept definitions for the image construct exist almost as
many scholars deal with this issue. Many of these definitions are quite broad appealing to
ideas and impressions, beliefs and thoughts and emotional reflections about a particular
destination (e.g. Hunt 1975, Lawson and Bond-Bovy 1977, Crompton 1979, Dichter 1985,
Reynolds 1985, Tasci and Kozak 2006). In contrast, others explicitly narrow the concept to
associations or components (e.g. Hosany, Ekinci and Uysal 2007, Gartner 1993). However, in