Exploring the Discrepancy between Projected and Perceived Destination Images: A Cross-Cultural and Sustainable Analysis Using LDA Modeling

Abstract

The projected image, created by destination marketing organizations, and the perceived image, formed by tourists’ perceptions, are crucial factors in destination selection. In this paper, machine learning models are used to construct projected image dimensions and perceptual dimensions for Chinese and English to analyze the similarities and differences between projected and perceptual images and their Chinese sustainability and cultural differences issues. We take Xiamen, a seaside tourist city in China, as an example, and analyze it by collecting 110,098 official promotional texts (both in Chinese and English) and tourist online review feedback as data sources using a latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model of natural language processing. The findings show that (1) the official projected image focuses on the overall image of the destination, while the tourists’ perceived image focuses on the specific image. (2) The official projected image covers the whole area of tourism, while the tourists’ perceived image focuses on Xiamen’s well-known attractions. The results of the above two points are the same for both the Chinese and English Topic models. (3) The official projected image focuses on three dimensions of destination: sustainability-economic, socio-cultural and environmental, while the tourist perception is more in the socio-cultural and environmental dimensions. (4) Both the projected and perceived images in Chinese and English differ in cross-cultural situations. The perceived images of Chinese and British tourists are influenced by their respective cultural backgrounds. Chinese tourists’ perceptions reflect cultural values associated with collectivism, long-term orientation, and uncertainty avoidance. On the other hand, British tourists’ perceptions align with cultural values of individualism, short-term orientation, and lower uncertainty avoidance. These differences can be explained using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory. The research in this paper can provide a reference for the promotion of tourism cities, and tourism destination organizations should not only focus on sustainable promotion, but also attract domestic and foreign tourists through differentiated promotion.