Exploring the Role of Advertising in the Context of Tourist-Destination Congruity

Tourists are flooded with advertising messages, including destination-attribute-based or user-imagery-based pictures, to persuade them to visit the destination. While research emphasizes destination choice to result from tourist-destination congruity, examining the influence different pictures have on tourist decision-making is of increasing interest. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the efficacy of destination-attribute-based versus user-imagery-based ad stimuli to influence the tourist-destination congruity and predict a person's likelihood of choosing the destination. Results from a quantitative study of 496 young Slovenians show that a higher degree of ideal and ideal social tourist-destination congruence would lower one's perceived purchase risk and yield positive attitudes toward the ad with a destination-attribute-based picture as opposed to the ad with a user-imagery-based picture. Implications for destination marketing are discussed, such as evaluating a typical destination visitor when one is included in the advertising and when one is not.