The Importance Of Destination Choice In Tourism

Destination choice has always been an important aspect in tourism literature as it is the key element in the travel decision-making process (Papatheodorou, 2006). The first interesting model is a two-stage model developed by the work of Palvia (2007) for choosing overseas country for the outsourcing of IT services. The model demonstrates that a selection of foreign country will occur first, with different factors impacting the decision including political climate, economic conditions, and regulatory standards. Once a foreign country has been selected, then decision is made in selecting an international facility. However, Smith and Forgione (2008) who applied this conceptual model to medical tourism field claim that the international facility …show more content…
The concept explains internal and external information that patients take account of before choosing a destination. The internal information is based on prior knowledge of alternative destinations; if such prior knowledge enables prospective tourists to make a decision on a destination with confidence, they tend not to engage in an external information search (Wirtz and Mattila, 2003, Gursoy, 2003), which refers to travel professionals, word-of-mouth information, marketing communication, and destination-specific literature (Baloglu and McCleary, 1999). However, in case of medical tourists, they are more likely to rely on word-of-mouth information from doctors and insurance companies, rather than information from other external sources (Bieger and Laesser, …show more content…
Purdue and Meng (2006) and Tasci and Gartner (2007) claim that such a destination image plays a critical role in destination choice. The destination where the most positive image with regard to the tourist‘s activities of interest is portrayed will be chosen primarily. Destination image is formed from the information that prospective tourists receive from a variety of information sources, which can be categorised into three types: induced image agents, organic image agents, and autonomous image. The first type of information is provided by induced image agents, which refer to the marketing communication activities of destinations or service providers (Beerli and Martin, 2004). Next is the provision of organic image agents such as social channels who provide information about a destination on an informal basis (Beerli and Martin, 2004) including word-of-mouth communication (Na et al., 2006) and first-hand experience. Finally is information provided by autonomous image agents or information that is outside the control of destinations, including news, documentaries, and guidebooks (Beerli and Martin,