The Role of Awareness and Familiarity with a Destination: The Central Florida Case

Abstract

This study is based on the theoretical background of the consumer's buying process incorporating product awareness, familiarity, interest, and purchase. Using a sample of 750 U.S. households, a series of hypotheses were tested to analyze whether consumer aware ness and familiarity with Central Florida as a vacation destination had an impact on the consumer's destination image and on the interest and likelihood to visit it. The results indicate that those who were familiar with Central Florida (i.e., had previously visited it) had a more positive image of the destination and were more interested in and likely to revisit it than those who were only aware of the destination. However, contrary to our expectations, interest or likelihood to visit Central Florida was not significantly higher among those who were aware of Central Florida as a tourist destination than those who were not aware of it. For this case, it is possible to conclude that as consumers move from the awareness stage to the familiarity stage their interest and likelihood to visit increase, although the same may not be true when consumers move from the nonawareness to the awareness stage.

Urban tourist motivations: why visit Ljubljana?

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The Image of Taiwan as a Travel Destination: Perspectives from Mainland China

“…Researchers have found that visitors have more positive and favorable images of a destination than non-visitors (Awaritefe, 2004;Fakeye & Crompton, 1991;Hughes & Allen, 2008;Leisen, 2001;Milman & Pizam, 1995). Visitors score significantly higher than non-visitors on image attributes, such as social opportunities and attractions; infrastructure, food, and friendly people; and bars and evening entertainment, because contacts with residents and the use of the destination's facilities could help visitors create a more complex and differentiated image (Fakeye & Crompton, 1991).…”

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