Affective Images of Tourism Destinations

TLDR

Destination image studies in tourism have mainly focused on perceptual or cognitive aspects, leaving affective components underexplored. The study aimed to test whether Russell’s affective space model could be applied to tourism destination countries and used for affective positioning. The authors applied Russell’s affective space model to 11 Mediterranean countries and used multidimensional scaling to map their affective images. Multidimensional scaling of 11 Mediterranean countries confirmed that Russell’s affective space model applies to non‑directly perceived places and can be used for affective positioning of tourism destinations, offering theoretical and practical implications for future research.

Abstract

The destination image and positioning studies in tourism have been limited to those dealing with the image's perceptual or cognitive component. This study examined the applicability of Russel and his colleagues' proposed affective space structure to large-scale environments (i.e., tourism destination countries) as well as its potential as a positioning structure to study affective images of tourism destinations. The multidimensional scaling analysis of 11 Mediterranean countries along with proposed affective space structure indicated that Russel and his colleagues' proposed affective space can also be applied to places that are not perceived directly. It also showed potential for studying the affective image positioning of tourism destinations. The article concludes with some theoretical and practical implications and future research areas regarding tourism destination images.