The Influence of Elements of Cultural Heritage on the Image of Destinations, Using Four Polish Cities as an Example

Abstract

Cultural heritage and its various elements are an important factor that supports the development of tourism in destinations. One of the key factors of a successful destination is its positive image that allows it to effectively attract visitors. This paper investigates the impact of selected elements of material cultural heritage on the image of four Polish metropolitan destinations. The results indicate thathistorical and cultural heritage plays a more significantrole in creating an attractive image of a city than the city’s contemporary and post-industrial facilities. Cities perceived as historical areconsideredas much more attractive to spend free time in than cities predominantly associated with industrial functions. Moreover, the presented research results confirm a relationship between the familiarity of a destination and its positive image. These features have also been observed in previous studies.

Destination Familiarity and Perceived Attractiveness of Four Polish Tourism Cities

“…The subjective assessment of tourist attractiveness is often related to the concept of the destination image [43,44], and uses methods developed for the needs of multidimensional analysis of this image [6,8,12,32,45]. Researchers often use the concept of the destination's perceived tourist attractiveness [43,[46][47][48].…”

Research on Online Destination Image of Zhenjiang Section of the Grand Canal Based on Network Content Analysis

“…Ginting claims that landmark, which is part of the uniqueness of heritage tourism, plays a key role in enhancing the city identity to make it more attractive and recognizable [33]. (2) Familiarity: Shubert's research shows that the more familiar the cultural heritage elements of a single destination are, the more positive its evaluation of tourism attraction is [27]. This relationship has been confirmed in many years of scientific research [34][35][36][37].…”

“…Tourists are the main body to explain cultural heritage resources. Therefore, their attraction to tourists does not come directly from their true features but from how people look at them, that is, tourists' perception [27]. Different motivations and social demographic characteristics of tourists will make them have different perceptions and experiences [28][29][30].…”

The Effect of the Image of Destinations on Household Income and Distribution: Evidence From China’s Tourist Cities

“…Additionally, the image of city destination established by tourism resources, including civil and official recognition, plays an important role in regional development ( Salehzadeh et al, 2016 ; Hwa-Kyung and Timothy, 2018 ). When a city has fruitful tourism resources, including natural and cultural landscapes, the resulting image enhances its ability to promote its external urban performance from a resource endowment standpoint ( Su et al, 2018 ; Ebejer, 2019 ; Szubert et al, 2021 ). A good image can strengthen a city’s resource advantage and drive its development; such an image can be enhanced through government accreditation ( Smith, 2006 ) and investment ( Vanolo, 2015 ).…”