Of products and tourism destinations: An integrative, cross-national study of place image

Despite recognition that places have images, and that images influence consumers (Rojas-Mendez, 2013), place image research has been challenged by a lack of breadth. Studies are generally limited to the perspective of one field of study, mainly Product-Country Image (PCI) or Tourism Destination Image (TDI), measure the images of individual places without reference to a comparative perspective, and rarely consider the influence of a broader gestalt perception of place (Zeugner-Roth & Zabkar, 2015). To explore the multi-dimensional nature of place image and its influence on buyer behavior, this study adopts an interdisciplinary approach by incorporating product, country, and tourism variables simultaneously. An integrated model is empirically tested in two countries using four target countries in each case, resulting in eight model tests. Results reveal how the subcomponents of place image are related: cognitive country image has the greatest influence on product evaluations; affective country image has the greatest influence on destination evaluations; and notably, product beliefs influence tourism receptivity, supporting the hypothesized cross-over effect from PCI to TDI.