Formation of a tourist destination image: Co-occurrence analysis of destination promotion videos

The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed worldwide economic growth and led to losses in tourism. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (2020), international visitor arrivals declined by 74% in 2020. A positive and distinct tourist destination image (TDI) acts as a “pull” element, increasing tourists’ interest in a place (Pan, 2011) and aiding in the recovery of tourism markets during the pandemic.

Studies have traditionally examined TDI through promotional materials (Andreu et al., 2000), television commercials (Pan, 2011), and travel magazines (Hsu & Song, 2013). With the proliferation of social media platforms such as Flickr and Pinterest (Picazo & Moreno-Gil, 2019) and Instagram (Arefieva et al., 2021), research on user-generated comments and images has increased. More video content has been produced (Cao et al., 2021; Nguyen & Tong, 2022), such as destination promotion videos (DPVs) and user-generated content (UGC) short-form videos (for example, TikTok). The DPV is motion visual media intentionally produced by destination marketing organizations (DMOs) to attract tourists. Kim and Richardson (2003) proposed that videos are especially effective in shaping the image and increasing the number of visits. Yan and Santos (2009) claimed that videos give destination marketers “an enormous capacity to portray the destination's culture, people and identity in a compelling manner” (p. 299). According to Vertical Travel (2014), online video has become a major component of internet promotion strategies, providing a competitive edge in tourism sales. A survey conducted in Puumala reveals that 71.4% of respondents watch videos on the official website or social networks about tourist destinations prior to arriving (Natalia, 2015). Studies confirm the positive impacts of promotional movies on the travel intentions of prospective visitors (Guerrero-Rodríguez et al., 2020; Cao et al., 2021).

DPVs hosted on official and governmental tourism websites or social media platforms have been and will continue to be valuable for strategically developing, marketing, and changing destinations' images (Molinillo et al., 2018), most notably during the pandemic. Official promotional material affects consumer travel decision-making and continues to be a significant source of information for international tourists, according to Manhas and Dogra (2019). Thailand is an excellent example of the power of such websites. The website and social media channels of Thailand's Tourism Authority have long been the primary source of information for tourists (Kasemsuk, 2013), with over 23 million annual visitors and over 4.8 million on Thailand Tourism Authority's social media channels. According to a 2019 survey of the travel planning process of international tourists to Thailand, the most often researched topics on social media prior to departure were: 1) travel routes (57.5%), 2) tourist attractions (49.4%), and 3) accommodations (33.3%) (Tourism Authority of Thailand, 2019). According to these statistics, tourists travel to Thailand use social media more frequently to organize their trips in advance. Consequently, social media platforms are crucial avenues for tourism marketing and communication in the tourism industry (Harb et al., 2019).

Additionally, while UGC-based materials have increased in popularity and usefulness in the development of TDIs, consumers have grown increasingly aware of fraudulent reviews and profiles on social media, eroding their trust in anonymous UGC and Web 2.0's ostensibly non-commercial nature (Domenico et al., 2021). According to Cox et al. (2009), information obtained through social media is not necessarily accepted as more trustworthy than that from more traditional sources, such as official tourism websites. Cox et al.’s (2009) findings demonstrate that social media platforms complement rather than replace traditional sources of travel information.

To comprehend TDI and to identify a destination's iconic traits, researchers have used a deconstruction strategy, concentrating on the frequency with which a destination's symbols or icons appear in textual and visual information (Bieger & Laesser, 2004; Hsu & Song, 2013; Huang et al., 2021; Hunter, 2012; Önder & Marchiori, 2017). Prior research has usually categorized and quantified a destination's notable images and topics (Picazo & Moreno-Gil, 2019). For example, Hsu and Song (2013) found that the projected images of Hong Kong and Macau were dominated by attributes related to attractions, cuisine, hotels, and recreation. Spain's projected image was associated with beaches and sunshine (Andreu et al., 2000); Seoul's highlighted its waterways, shopping districts, historic city gates, festivals, and cultural events (Hunter, 2012).

While research has produced valuable frameworks for assessing and quantifying the TDI, most have focused on physical contexts, such as the built and natural environments. Less emphasis has been placed on destinations' social and psychological characteristics. To make informed decisions, individuals must anticipate how a location would affect their emotions (Miloyan & Suddendorf, 2015). This visitor's sense of place or place attachment has a significant impact on the destination's appeal and is crucial in determining travel intent (Silva et al., 2018).

Place-attachment is characterized as “an emotional bond or connection between people and specific places” (Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001, p. 274). According to studies, destination characteristics like tourism services, sceneries, and events are all associated with place attachment (Xu & Zhang, 2016; Zhang et al., 2016). It influences what individuals perceive, think, and feel about a place and acts as a mediator between the image of a tourist destination and the behavior of tourists (Fan & Qiu, 2014).

In TDI analysis, the relationship between iconic destination representations and place meanings is concealed beneath the combinations of iconic features. Stedman (2003) proposed that individuals do not become directly attached to the physical features of a place, but rather to the meaning of those features. Manzo (2005) commented, “it is not simply the places themselves that are significant, but rather what can be called “experience-in-place” that creates meaning” (p. 74). For example, tourists dining in a high-end restaurant may generate completely different feelings and experiences from those that would accompany dining with a local family. These findings illustrate the significance of person-place bonding in eliciting tourists’ affect or emotion toward a destination when developing a comprehensive image of a destination.

It is especially important given the change in demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as travelers place greater emphasis on psychological considerations (Riestyaningrum et al., 2020). The exposition of destination compositional meaning, such as security, joy, health, and cleanliness, will be more effective than identifying physical landmarks and iconography in luring potential tourists during and after the COVID-19 epidemic. The TDI analysis should therefore shed light on the possible link to place-attachment, especially to its subdimensions of place affect and place-social bonding.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic construction of TDI by mapping the interaction and composition structure of destination iconic symbols displayed in DMO-produced DPVs. In contrast to past TDI research, which attempted to deconstruct the TDI into distinct iconic symbols, this study focuses on the social and psychological components of the TDI and on the person-place relationship. We hypothesize that the space-people-activity (SPA) connection is crucial role in building a meaningful image of a destination, and that DPVs with varied combinations of SPA attributes may elicit distinct emotions and place meanings from tourists. To comprehend TDI, one must adopt a holistic approach and propose a new co-occurring paradigm for TDI formation analysis in order to decipher the hidden meaning inside the destination-representing symbols that have been shattered.

While most of the literature focuses on a snapshot of the TDI, this study's findings can demonstrate how this reconstruction technique can be used to interpret destination's desired image to tourists and the DMO's marketing strategy. To accomplish the research objective, we answer three questions: (1) What images or place meanings can be reflected by the space-people-activity attributes of co-occurrence analysis? (2) Could co-occurrence analysis aid in the interpretation of the emotional and symbolic meanings of a destination? (3) Is it possible that the compositional pattern of SPA components has changed, indicating an evolving strategy for TDI construction? To demonstrate the value and efficacy of attribute co-occurrence analysis in comprehending the construction and evolution of TDI, we analyzed 38 videos distributed to Western tourist markets by the Tourism Authority of Thailand between 1993 and 2021.

This study makes the following contributions. First, it builds a tripartite framework of space-people-activity (SPA) to reclassify image attributes in combination with place attachment theory, which facilitates a more integrative and inclusive interpretation of TDI. Second, this is the first examination of TDI generation using relational interaction/co-occurrence analysis of visual signals. The method could help researchers explain how people become attached to a place and produce a better way to account for tourists' need for social connection and relationship in TDI projections. This could lead to a strong revival of tourism in the post-COVID-19 world, where people care more than ever about their health, happiness, and relationships with each other and the planet (Lew et al., 2020). Additionally, this is the first study to investigate the evolution of TDI across nearly three decades of DPVs, including the freshly launched DPVs in 2020 and 2021, which can enable a thorough demonstration of the new co-occurring method in the analysis of TDI generation, thereby contributing to the under-researched field of destination image transformation. Simultaneously, this study's findings illustrate the importance of emotional evoking in DPVs for fostering visitors' place attachment and generating destination images. The study thus recommends a shift in TDI development from exhibiting iconic physical settings to designating emotionalizing locations by purposefully selecting tourist favorite characters in DPVs to guide tourists' comprehension of the emotional image of the destination. The study also indicates the effectiveness of videos as an agent for image analysis, laying the foundations for future discussions of image generation.