Destination Image of Literary Places:A Case Study of Stratford-upon-Avon, UK

• Main Authors: Huang Ya-Hui, 黃雅惠
• Other Authors: Liu Yi-De
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/05948616760538931022

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 歐洲文化與觀光研究所 === 99 === The motivation of this research derives from the increasing importance of cultural tourism as well as the critical role of destination image in traveling decision making. With a literature review on tourism destination image (TDI), few studies are focused on special-interest tourism such as cultural tourism and none has taken literary places from the perspective of TDI. Hence, this paper will be the first research to link these two research issues: literary tourism and destination image. In this research, Shakespeare’s hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon, is chosen as a case study. Qualitative method is adopted and a semi-structured interview is conducted both to extract tourists’ perceived images and to delve into the formation of destination image. The first part of the research explores different dimensions of literary destination images. The results show that the perceived images are more about unique-functional and unique-psychological components, which indicates that literary destination images are different from those of mass tourism destinations. Most of the unique-functional images are related to Shakespeare, which confirms a literary figure in shaping place imagery. The unique-psychological images are derived from the cultural and literary ambiance of the literary place. Besides, Stratford’s history and Tudor architecture also provoke tourists’ affective images. All in all, literary destination images feature the literary, historical and cultural dimensions. The second part of the research focuses on the formation of destination image, which is examined from three aspects: (1) cultural distance, (2) literary tourist typology, (3) Baloglu & McCleary’s framework of destination image formation. The results show that (1) affected by cultural distance, British tourists’ cultural and historical backgrounds lead to images of historical aspect, while Taiwanese tourists, due to larger cultural distance, are perceiving images related to literary and cultural merchandises. (2) Four types of literary tourists are classified based on the dimensions of literary motive and depth of literary experience. The analysis shows that tourists are affected by motivation while the depth of experience only has limited influence. (3) Concerning personal factors, Stratford’s images are affected only by profession and educational backgrounds. Regarding stimulus factors, Stratford’s images are affected by educational resource, media, brochures, tour guide, tourism industry and previous travel experiences.