Understanding destination personality through visitors' experience: A cross-cultural perspective

Destination personality is an essential element of destination brands and closely connected to visitors' experiences and emotions at the destination. This study investigates the reconstruction of destination personality through tourists' written accounts in the situational context of Jeju Island, South Korea. Guided by the brand personality literature and a content analysis of tourists' description of their experiences on travel blogs, the study identifies a set of traits that describe the personality of Jeju Island and further compares personality perceptions between tourists from Eastern and Western markets. The results indicate that tourists' written accounts provide rich information to understand visitors' experiences and an emotional connection to the destination through which destination personality manifests itself. The findings also indicate that destination personality perceptions may vary according to tourists' cultural backgrounds. The results of the study may assist DMOs in developing marketing strategies that are adaptive to cultural differences among their origin markets.