4. HIPOTESYS
Tourism destinations are brands and satisfiers of needs and wants at the same time. The image of destinations refers to perceptions of tourists in a destination and these correspond to the perceived contribution of the different tourism services to be found there: accommodation, food, transport, and more (Gallarza, Saura & García, 2002). In consequence the image must be congruent with the triad proposed by Vázquez-Barquero (1999), and/or with the dyad of resources proposed by Vargo & Lusch (2004). This way it seems reasonable to expect that:
H1 – The image of a touristic destination is organized into three groups of factors representing the hardware/operand resources, the software/operant resources and the orgware.
According to
H6 – Values related to in-group association, as the sense of belonging and warm relationships with others, influence the assessment of factors related to the interaction with residents and their inheritance.
The image evaluation is an important ancestor for tourists’ satisfaction and repeated visiting intentions (Pike, 2007; Tasci & Gartner, 2007), and this way it is possible to expect that:
H7 – Factors encompassing expected benefits at destination like mobility, entertainment, services in general and the wellcomeness influence the likelihood to visit and/or to recommend the destination.
The choice of a holiday destination is considered a high involvement purchase, since consumers spend great amount of time and money on that decision (Matos, Mendes & Valle, 2012). According to Hallmann, Zehrer & Müller (2015), although still significant, value for money plays one of the least important role for image formation. Therefore we can expect that:
H8 – The prices of services do comprise a value for money factor, but its influence on decisions regarding to visit or to recommend the destination is not
The List of Values (9 variables) were presented as rank order questions, and the TDI attributes and the likelihood to visit and to recommend were collected as seven points semantic differential questions, ranging from ‘certainly not’ (-3) to ‘certainly yes’