Influence of Cultural Background on Visitor Segments’ Tourist Destination Image: A Case Study of Barcelona and Chinese Tourists

Abstract

Tourists from different cultural backgrounds have different perceptions of the image of a tourist destination. This paper aims to investigate tourist destination image (TDI) from a national cultural perspective and to see whether there exists the influence of culture on a visitor segment’s destination image as well as their travel behavior and satisfaction. Barcelona as the destination and the Chinese market are utilized to present an empirical discussion of the study. Based on the results of the qualitative method previously conducted by the authors, a questionnaire was designed in this paper. The SPSS 22 program was used for data management and analysis. This study first demonstrates that TDI perceived by the Chinese visitors is influenced by their pro-social cultural background and, second, that the visitors greatly value prestige and social networking during the visitation. This study further discusses the reasons why the visitors greatly value prestige and social networking and how “facework” influences their travel behavior based on the concept of culture value orientation. Overall, this study contributes to the existing knowledge on the formation of perception of TDI by analyzing the influence of the tourist cultural background on their TDI.