Images of Italy, France and Morocco as tourist destinations

Abstract

For a geographic area to become successful as a tourist destination, it is crucially important to recognise the tourist destination's perceived images since they effect the individual's subjective perception and consequent behaviour and destination choice. This importance has led to a growing body of research on tourism destination image. In this research, image differences of three competing Mediterranean destinations – Italy, France and Morocco – were examined in terms of how they are perceived by university students. Research data were analysed by stepwise discriminant analysis. According to research results it was found that perceived images of the three destinations are significantly different. Also, results showed that, potential customers for Italy, France and Morocco destinations could be predicted by using a discriminant function.