Desirability of differences in destinations

The purpose of this study was to explore how potential tourists interpret representations in terms of familiarity and desirability, and whether stereotypes influence interpretation. College sophomores viewed guidebook images of two locations and listed thoughts about the scenes in terms of the people who live there and what vacations and living there would be like. Responses were analyzed using a computer-assisted content analysis program that identifies co-occurrence of terms within cases, and terms were cluster-analyzed to determine relationships. Results indicated that familiarity and desirability are complex concepts. Respondents preferred familiar images for vacations, differentiating among various images of those destinations. Interpretation of destination images and perceived familiarity appears to strongly rely on stereotypes of the places considered. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.