Impact of the destination image on cruise repeater's experience and intention at the visited port of call

The image incidence of the destination visited by cruise ships in the lived experience, the satisfaction, and the consumption intentions of repeat visitors has been scarcely discussed in tourism literature. However, repeat visitors to the destination represent a great opportunity to increase cruise visitor spending at ports of call. This tends to be inferior to the spending on board or to that in the destination by a tourist traveling by other means. In this sense, a research model is proposed to explore the causal relationships mentioned above in the context of cruise ships that docked at the port of Ensenada, Baja California during a period of three months in 2013. The research methodology consists in formulating a set of hypotheses for a model sustained by empirical data obtained from a two-stage probabilistic sample design and analyzed with Partial Least Squares path modeling (PLS). The results indicate that destination image significantly influences visit experience which has a decisive influence on satisfaction and on the consumption intentions of the repeat visitor. For this segment in particular, the findings highlight the importance of strengthening the experience above satisfaction to expand and diversify consumption.