Comunicación y diversidad de conocimiento en el aula

Destination perception is a psychological concept and refers to the process by which a person receives, selects, organizes, and interprets information to create a picture of the destination. The attributes of various cultural, social, natural contexts and tourist infrastructure dimensions help to form perception about a destination (Mayo & Jaris, 1981). According to Chiang (2009) these destination attributes are main elements which reflect the tourist destination perception and tourists consider most or all of these attributes when they form their perception toward a destination.

Gaffar et al. (2011) studied the relationship between tourist perception on six product attributes and their post-visit behaviour. Activities most significantly influenced post- behaviour in Indonesia. On the other hand, in Thailand, attractions had the most significant influence. The authors used path analysis to elucidate the relationship. The authors have shown path coefficients involving inter-relationships among six destination attributes. In this study, activities include shopping, variety entertainment, sports and adventure and fun. But none of these are related to MICE events. So, MICE participants need to have separate time for these activities before, during or after the event. It is not certain that they actually participated in any of these activities. Just because they perceived availability of activities, it does not necessarily mean that they participated in them.

Zhou (2011) classified tourists to Cape Town as destination-unrestricted and destination-restricted tourists. They identified ten Cape Town attributes were important in decision making by the former category, but not in the case of the latter. The ten Cape Town attributes influenced decision making differently. The ten attributes of Cape Town in the order of ranking were: price and value for money, landscape as natural tourist attractions, night life and entertainment, culture and history, safety, relaxation, climate, local people’s attitude towards tourists, easy accessibility of information, sport, nostalgia, special events and adventure. As the items were selected by international students at Cape Town, they reflect only the choice of youngsters. In his model, the author proposed that perception was influenced by gender, age, destination restrictions, geographic factors, education and whether a first time or repeat visitor. Looking at this example from the perspective of Muslims compared to Non-Muslims, some of the identified deciding factors can be segments to the Muslim or Non-Muslim group. For example, Muslims

visiting the KSA might give greater importance to culture and history of the country, whereas Non-Muslim visitors might give greater importance to entertainment and night life aspects of the Saudi life (i.e. relating to the western concept of hedonism). This automatically means destination decision making will be more favourable to the KSA if the respective perceptions are correct.

Perception may directly or indirectly determine destination choice through the image of the destination from the perception based on information on the destination. The impact of different destination attributes on destination perception may not be equal and the impact of some attributes may be stronger. In a paper related to this study (Ismail & Turner, 2008), Malay, Chinese and English tourists were shown to rate different destination attributes differently. The three groups of tourists differ in their cultural and religious beliefs. Yet, although there were differences in relative importance given, all rated price and environment negatively. It may mean that there is a likelihood of tourists of different cultures having similar perspectives about positive and negative attributes. This is counter to the basic assumption of this study. Another dimension of destination attributes is to conceptualise agents of convention destination choices as suppliers, and business associations as buyers. Miller & Kerr (2009) observed that suppliers had incomplete and imperfect understanding of the site needs of the diverse convention buyers, and this was the bottleneck for chances of new convention sites being selected. Segmentation of individual convention buyers according to their range of needs may improve the prospects.

Thus, destination attributes are not the only factors that form the tourist destination perception. Um & Crompton (1990) argued that tourist perceptions of a destination might be influenced by various internal and external inputs. Internal input refers to travellers’ socio-demographics, values, and motives and external inputs include different sources of information like mass media, word-of-mouth, and a past visit. In a study on Macau as an integrated resort, So et al. (2011) pointed out that perception is more important than reality. A tourist evaluates a destination based on the ability of the destination to satisfy the specific travel needs of the individual. Perception is determined by a stimulus-response mechanism. Stimulus is external and response is internal. Perception as a destination image is correlated with motivation.

The socio-demographic characteristics that influence the tourist's perception of objects, products, and destinations include gender, age, occupation, education, nationality and marital status (Baloglu & McCleary, 1999; Beerli & Martin, 2004). The study of solo women travellers by Bonn et al. (2005) found that the mental maps of the world held by women are determined by their perceptions in terms of safety, cultural differences and the social norms associated with their roles in different countries. The influential role of gender in the forming of destination perception was also confirmed by Zhou (2011) from his studies on the perception of Cape Town as an international tourism destination.

Nationality of the tourist is another important socio-demographic variable. Implicit in nationality are tradition, custom and culture. This can significantly determine destination perceptions (Baloglu, 1997;Pizam & Sussman, 1995). Bonn et al. (2005) highlighted the impact of tourist geography and cultural differences in creating distinct destination perceptions. For example, in the case of integrated resorts, convention attendees have a positive attitude towards shopping facilities. Among the Asians, the Chinese have more positive attitudes towards integrated centres and other Asians are interested in shopping facilities. This result was obtained by So et al. (2011).

The local population in a destination is the best judge of ethnic/cultural differences among tourists from different countries and backgrounds. In their study on cross- cultural tourist behaviour in Vietnam, Truong & King (2009) observed that culture is a determinant of perception. It controls how matters are perceived and interpreted. In social interactions, perception can be personal, towards others or meta- perceptions or perceptions of perceptions. Social interaction plays an important role in social media and e-WOM as discussed above. Tourist perceptions of hosts can influence destination choice, satisfaction and repeat visits. In the matter of cultural differences, perceptions of local people may enable identification of stereotypes of tourist groups from a specific country or culture. The individual’s culture and the culture into which socialisation occurs are both important in perceptions. Implicit or explicit expressions of cultural influence may be seen in a variety of tourist needs. The authors proposed a model for cross-cultural tourist satisfaction. Together with socio-demographic factors, nationality factors operate inseparably and implicitly as cultural and religious factors. Thus, knowledge of socio-demographic, nationality

cultural and religious affiliations of MICE tourists are required to correctly design destination attributes to match their needs and expectations with experiences. This is potentially an important aspect of this study.

Not surprisingly, past travel experience exerted high influence on tourist destination perception according to the findings of (Mazursky, 1989). In Chon's (1990) study, there was more positive overall perception of destination by the post-visitor compared to the perception of pre-visitors. For Chiang (2009) the influence of past destination experiences produced a distinct influence on behavioural intentions of MICE travellers in Taiwan. The author tested a model, which was based on means- end theory, functional theory and the expectation-disconfirmation model and advertising tracking model given in Figure 12. Destination attributes are the pull dimensions. These are perceived by the tourists through cognitive and affective components. Expected benefits in terms of professional and recreational activities become the pull factors. When these two meet or do not meet, overall satisfaction is affected and this leads to behavioural intentions. Thus, satisfaction mediates the motivation-behavioural intentions relationship. The author found a positive relationship between satisfaction and future revisit intentions to the same destination. First time tourists were motivated by affective destination attributes and hence were seeking new travel experiences.

In fact, familiarity is a significant factor in influencing tourists' perception of a place (Hu and Ritchie, 1993) and individuals with past travel experience, might become more confident travellers with more positive perceptions toward a destination as a result of their experience (Fakeye & Crompton, 1991). Obviously, the perception of a tourist who has no tourism experience is due to the knowledge originating from promotional sources. It differs from the perception of an experienced tourist (Reisinger & Turner, 2003). It follows that, people with different kinds of experience of the destination possess different kinds of destination perceptions in their minds. Chiang (2009) suggested that tourist destination perceptions are formed in three ways: (a) "a priori" perception is the mental picture that an individual makes of a place without an actual physical visit, which originates from the individual general exposure on various information sources like reading, watching television, or even movies (b) "in situ" perception occurs when the tourists experience the destination. Clearly, they have a previous perception of the place that may or may not be altered and (c) "a posterior" perception indicates that tourist experience does not end with the trip. For instance the role of photographs or handicrafts that might have an impact on the tourist's perception towards a particular destination attributes.

Chiang (2009) discussed the three continua (attribute-holistic, functional- psychological and common-unique) proposed by some workers. Perceptions can be induced through brochures and other promotional methods. Images formed by visitors and non-visitors can differ, the former being more realistic. Incapability for rational disaggregation of perceived holistic image makes them more realistic. Impressions of a destination can be multi-dimensional known as perceptual space or a mental map. The resulting image will have a high degree of subjectivity and relativity over its various dimensions. Websites, e-WOM and social media, discussed earlier, can be used to measure individual impressions more realistically. However, personal perception towards a destination will fundamentally shape their responses in terms of their choices and actions. Findings of many empirical studies indicate that perceptions of tourists towards particular destinations, what tourists perceive as important for a destination and how they perceive it are the factors that can influence them positively or negatively toward a destination (Beerli &Martin, 2004; Chiang, 2009).

Reisinger and Turner (2003) pointed out that, the more favourable the perceptions are, the greater is the likelihood of choosing a product from various similar alternatives. Therefore, one pre-requisite for choice of a specific destination is a positive relationship between the perception of the place and the intention to visit. This relationship (Milman & Pizam, 1991) applies also to the perception and consequent destination choices of potential tourists although they are yet to visit the place (Tapachai & Waryszak, 2000). Nationality, culture, gender and past visit experience may influence how individuals perceive a destination, which in turn affects their intentions to visit each in the manner discussed above.

The difference between perception and attitude was stressed in the beginning of this section. Perceptions are formed by action of mind and senses and can be changed. Attitudes are learned to act consistently towards a thing or a person or an incident. Attitudes do not change easily. Perceptions lead to attitudes. Recognising these main differences between perception and attitude, the following subsection examines how attitudes affect destination decision making.