The Relationship Between Tourism Destination Image and Loyalty: A Multidimensional Approach

Destination loyalty represents an important pillar of any tourism destination's sustainable economic development. To effectively cultivate and secure destination loyalty, hospitality businesses, as well as tourism destination management organizations need to identify and understand the factors that impact visitors' loyalty. The current paper investigates the impact of destination image on destination loyalty, within the 4 A's theorical framework of tourism destination, emphasizing the differential impact of each image dimension on visitors' loyalty. For that, a self-administered paper and pencil survey was conducted among a sample of 1047 Romanians who had recently spent at least three days in a tourism destination. Overall, the results of the current study reinforce the findings of previous research, emphasizing a significant impact of tourism destination image on destination loyalty. Additionally, the current research brings new insights on this relationship, depicting the specific influence of accessibility, amenities, attractions, and ancillaries on visitors' loyalty. Thus, the results point out that destinations' amenities and attractions, as well as their ancillaries have significant impacts on visitors' loyalty, with the highest impact outlined in the case of ancillaries. However, accessibility, even though considered one of the pillars of a tourism destination, is not statistically relevant for nurturing and developing destination loyalty. The results have both theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, the current research is among the very few which clearly point out the impact of each specific dimension of tourism destination image on destination loyalty. From a practical perspective, the results emphasize the specific dimensions of visitor experience on which tourism destinations need to focus in order to develop and nurture destination loyalty.