Components of the image of a cultural tourism destinationworld heritage cities

Abstract

Image is a very studied approach in situations of concern for competitiveness of tourism destinations. The usefulness of image was initially expressed in terms of capacity to increase the number of visitors in a destination. The image is an important variable which has a relevant role in the decision's process of tourist in the choice of destination to visit. In addition the different theories of competitiveness consider the image as a generator factor of competitiveness. In spite of the relevance of the image, the attention of research to the formation process has been limited. In this sense, the aim of this paper from a theoretical point of view is to go deep in the study of the image, its definition, its components and its measurement scale. On the other hand, from an empirical point of view, a measurement scale is designed and validated for the specific typology of cultural and urban tourism destinations. Exactly, this paper analyzes the image of a cultural tourism destination like Cuenca, world heritage city, for which the attributes and dimensions that influence in the image formation are identified. The results of this study allow improving the theoretical framework of components and attributes of the image; designing a valid and reliable measurement scale for cultural and urban tourism destinations, for comparing destinations with similar characteristics, overcoming the problems about heterogeneity of different scales; and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the city analyzed, by the study of dimensions which have more influence in the destination image.