DESTINATION IMAGE IS NOT ENOUGH: PROPOSING EXPERIENTIAL TOURISM IMAGE

The present research note proposes the concept of the experiential tourism image, a concept that advances the extant destination image that focuses on the image formed about destination-ingrained attributes. The experiential tourism image advocates a tourist image formed about the tourist holistic experience. It is conceptualized with new knowledge on destination image by additionally considering diverse types of geographic regions where the tourism experience takes place and cocreating it. The geographic scope of the widely used concept of destination image has been confined to the destination region. Further, some studies have arbitrarily included the image about some attributes of non-destination regions to measure a destination image, thus causing an unclear conceptualization of the scope of a destination in using the term destination image. The extant destination image concept also has lacked consideration of the cocreation of the tourism experience. The suggested concept thus geographically incorporates the tourist-generating regions and the transit regions and additionally considers multiple destination regions visited in a single tourism experience. This new concept provides implications for tourism management.