INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 103–115 (2010)
Published online 21 June 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.737

Organisational Channel Discrepancies
between CVBs and Meeting Planners
in the USA
Dae-Young Kim1,*, Xinran Y. Lehto2 and Sheryl F. Kline3
Hotel & Restaurant Management, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA
2
Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
3
College of Hospitality, Retail, & Sport Management, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

1

ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study is to compare the
perception of advertising and
communication channels between
convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) and
meeting planners in the USA. By employing
245 of CVBs and 226 meeting planners
through an online survey method, the
results of the study reveal clear channel
discrepancies between CVBs and meeting
planners in terms of preference, attitude
and usage of communication and
advertising channels. In addition, the study

identifies different linkages between
advertising channels and advertising effects
in the two different groups. Implications for
industry practitioners as well as suggestions
for future study are discussed. Copyright ©
2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 07 July 2008; Revised 04 February 2009; Accepted 12
May 2009

Keywords: information channel;
organisational behaviour; CVBs; meeting
planners.
INTRODUCTION

M

eetings and conventions represent
one of the largest elements of the hospitality and tourism industry today.
According to a recent market report (Meetings

*Correspondence to: Dr. Dae-Young Kim, Assistant Professor, Hotel & Restaurant Management, University of
Missouri, 219 Eckles Hall, Columbia, MO 65211 USA.
Email:

& Conventions, 2004), the meetings market
was estimated to be a $40.8 billion industry in
the USA in 2003. As an intermediary between
convention attendees and convention suppliers, meeting planners have played an important role in the meetings and convention
industry by selecting sites, organising meetings and coordinating services and events
(Rutherford, 1990; Casanova et al., 2005). As a

layer of destination marketing organisations,
convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) are
important information brokers and disseminators in the meetings and convention industry.
One of CVBs’ critical missions is to promote
and brand their destination as a desirable
place for meetings and conventions and other
related group businesses through travel intermediaries such as a travel agency and meeting
planner (Kim et al., 2004; Gartrell, 1994).
In the meetings and convention industry,
associations, host locations and attendees are
considered the three major players in the meetings and convention industry (Oppermann and
Chon, 1997). Literature on the issue of site selection is substantial. Today, however, most
research efforts have focused mainly on each
player’s role, characteristics and channel preferences. As a result, research about the meetings
and convention industry might be fragmented
considering the three major parts of the industry need to work together and complement one
another in a coherent manner to ensure success.
Studies on meeting planners have mostly examined meeting planners’ perceptions (Bonn and
Boyd, 1992; Oppermann, 1996, 1998; Upchurch
et al., 1999; Baloglu and Love, 2001), preference
and satisfaction (Choi and Boger, 2000; Hu and
Hiemstra, 1996); Renaghan and Kay, 1987),
interactions with hotels (Campbell and Shaw,
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


104
2000; Rutherford and Umbreit, 1993; Weber,
2001a) and profiling and comparison among
different types of meeting planners (Bonn et al.,

1994; Goldblatt, 2000; Jones, 2000; Sheehan et al.,
2000). On the other hand, CVB-related studies
are mostly in the areas of profiling study (Sims,
1990; O’Halloran, 1992; Morrison et al., 1998),
managerial issues (Gartrell, 1992; Getz et al.,
1998), information channel usage (Cheung and
Law, 2002; Feng et al., 2004; Fesenmaier et al.,
1992; Yuan et al., 2003, 2006) and branding and
alliance (Blain et al., 2005; Palmer and Bejou,
1995). However, study on the two main players’
perspectives towards communication and
advertising channels present neglected areas of
research. Despite a few studies (Polivka, 1996;
Weber, 2001b) related to the relationship
between CVBs and meeting planners, there is a
substantial need to gain better understanding of
the two groups’ inter-relationship in terms of
their perception and usage of communication
and advertising channel.
In organisational channel research, a
substantial amount of literature proved that
communication and advertising channels are
adopted differently depending on the characteristics of an organisation, because each organisation has different organisational properties
and resources (i.e. Dewett and Jones, 2001;
Dejonckheere et al., 2004). That is, the value of
communication and advertising channel is
determined by the organisational resources
and characteristics in order to fully take advantage of the technology. Therefore, there is a
need to examine organisational channel adoption patterns based on different organisation
types (i.e. CVBs and meeting planners), organisational properties and environments. Based

on this recognition, the purpose of this study
was to compare the perceptions of advertising
(i.e. TV, magazine, Internet, etc.) and communication (i.e. fax, telephone, e-mail, etc.) channels between CVBs and meeting planners and
to gain a more comprehensive understanding
of the marketing communication dynamics of
the convention industry. The specific objectives
of this study were to (i) compare perceptions
and usage of channels between CVBs and
meeting planners and (ii) identify and describe
how CVBs and meeting planners are different
in terms of the relationships between advertising channels and advertising effects.
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

D.-Y. Kim, X. Y. Lehto and S. F. Kline
LITERATURE REVIEW
Organisational communication behaviour
According to Sheth (1996), research on organisational behaviour has simply exploded for
three reasons since the early 1980s. First, the
shift to understanding and influencing consumers to become customers (industrial, institutional and trade) has led to a greater focus
on organisational behaviour. Secondly, both
the academic journals and business professional organisations have encouraged research
and publications on inter-organisation buying
behaviour. Finally, the marketing discipline is
increasingly influenced by the disciplines of
organisational behaviour, industrial organisations and transaction cost theories in economies. Among the various issues in organisational
research, it is noted that the most popular area
of research has been the understanding of the
information processing and channel adoption
(Ward and Webster, 1991; Sheth, 1996; Hult
et al., 2004). There are some important differences between individual and organisational

decision-making (Solomon, 2001; Weiss and
Heide, 1993). Some of these differences are
summarised as follows:
(1) Organisational decision-making normally
involves many people, including those
who do the actual purchase, those who
directly or indirectly influence the decisions and those who actually use the
product or service.
(2) Organisational purchases are often made
according to precise, technical specifications that require great knowledge about
the product or service.
(3) Impulsive decision-making is unusual,
because decision makers’ thinking modes
are more analytical and controlled.
(4) Organisational decision-making often
involves more of an emphasis on personal
selling than on advertising or other forms
of promotion. Sometimes, dealing with
organisational buyers typically requires
more face-to-face communication.
Organisational channel choice
In the marketing communication research area,
information richness theory has been a major
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 103–115 (2010)
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Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners
stream of research surrounding the development of a rational channel choice model
for making communication choice decisions

among available communication channels.
Based on theoretical and empirical works (Daft
and Macintosh, 1981; Daft and Lengel, 1984,
1986), it is proposed that the choice of communication channel ranges from lean to rich.
Moreover, lean channels, such as memos and
other written documents, do not carry as many
communication cues as rich channels, such as
face-to-face conversation, where immediate
feedback and a wide variety of communication
cues are available to both the sender and
receiver of the respective message. This theory
further posits that managers will choose rich
media for addressing problems of ambiguity,
while lean media are appropriately selected
to deliver factual information that serves to
reduce uncertainty in managerial decisions
(Daft and Trevino, 1987).
Information richness theory provides basis
for a prescriptive approach in which achieving
a match between information processing
requirements and communication channels
was posited as essential for organisational
effectiveness (Daft and Lengel, 1986). Gradually, it came to be understood as a descriptive
theory of how employees and managers make
media choices (Daft and Trevino, 1987; Trevino
et al., 1987; Russ et al., 1990). Originally
developed for traditional means of intraorganisational communication, such as faceto-face meetings, telephone conversations,
inter-office memos and printed reports, information richness theory has been extended to
new communication media, including e-mail
(Trevino et al., 1987). Daft and Lengel (1986)

argued that communication transactions that
can overcome different frames of reference or
clarify ambiguous issues to change issues in a
timely manner are rich, and those that require
a long time to enable understanding or that
cannot overcome different perspectives are
lean. Information richness theory suggests that
intra-organisational communication can be
ordered on a continuum from leanest to richest
as follows: (i) numeric documents; (ii) impersonal written documents; (iii) personal letters
or memos; (iv) telephone; and (v) face-to-face
meetings. Lean communication media, including e-mail, memos and letters, might be approCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

105

priate for routine, analysable tasks such as
communicating rules, standard operating procedures, plans and schedules. However, lean
media lack a personal focus and the ability to
transmit non-verbal cues and provide immediate feedback (Trevino et al., 1987; Rice, 1991).
Channel effects
In terms of the characteristics of media channels, a common distinction made is between
broadcast such as TV and radio, and print,
such as newspapers and magazines (Assael,
1981; Bendizen, 1993). Broadcast media are
considered low-involvement channels, whereas
print media are generally regarded as
high-involvement channels (Krugman, 1969).
Television, in particular, produces low personal involvement because the rate of viewing
and understanding is out of the viewer’s
control. That is, television is not a highly selective medium in terms of audience selectivity.

It offers neither the geographic selectivity of
newspapers nor the demographic selectivity of
the specialised magazines. Instead, television
is a non-selective medium reaching a mass
audience. Creatively, television offers sight,
sound, motion and colour. So while viewer
attentiveness to commercials is likely to be
low, television contains an intrusive power to
force itself on viewers (Nylen, 1986). In contrast, print media enable the reader to set the
pace and, therefore, provide the opportunity
for making connections and dwelling on points
of interest.
The result is that print media offers a more
comfortable learning environment whereby
information can be more easily absorbed and
integrated. For instance, magazines offer
high-quality reproduction and good colour,
but most importantly, they are a self-interest
medium for readers. Moreover, printed materials offer longer life than most media (Nylen,
1986). Thus, print messages are more likely to
lead to a change in attitude and behaviour.
Accordingly, it seems logical to infer that television is a more effective medium for quick
messages, while print media are expected to be
more effective in persuading customers when
brand alternatives must be carefully compared.
TV advertising is designed to maintain familiarity with a brand and reinforce positive
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 103–115 (2010)
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106
experiences, while the messages delivered by
print media are likely to lead to favourable
behavioural responses. Within the context of
hospitality and tourism, it is also clearly
noted that each advertising channel distinctively influence different types of audience’s
perception and attitude due to their different
characteristics (Kim et al., 2005).
HYPOTHESES
There has been substantial empirical research
conducted on the impact of different types of
organisations on channel preferences (Capon
et al., 1992, 1996; Lee and Whang, 2001). In
particular, organisational characteristics (i.e.
supplier firm and customer firm) are an enduring quality of organisations, which influence
employees’ attitudes and preferences for communication channels (Taguiri and Litwin,
1968). Based on the literature review, this study
hypothesises that:
H1: There are different perceptions of communication channels between CVB marketers
and meeting planners.
H2. There are different usages of main advertising channels between CVB marketers and
meeting planners.
H3. There are different preferences of advertising channels between CVB marketers and
meeting planners.
H4. There are different perceptions of advertising channels between CVB marketers and
meeting planners.
H5. There are different relationships between
preferred channel and advertising effects
between CVB marketers and meeting
planners.

METHODOLOGY
Since the purpose of this study was to compare
CVBs’ and meeting planners’ channel preferences and usage, the data used for this study
were obtained from two different sources. In
the case of CVBs, the sample of CVBs was
drawn from the membership list of Destination
Marketing Association International. Only
CVB marketers in charge of promoting their
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

D.-Y. Kim, X. Y. Lehto and S. F. Kline
destinations and conventions (i.e. destination
marketers, destination promoters, directors of
sales, etc.) were selected because of the study
focus on the communication channel between
CVBs and meeting planners. The meeting
planner sample was drawn from the membership list of Professional Convention Management Association. From this membership list,
only meeting planners responsible for promoting destinations and communicating with
travellers and CVBs were selected. Before
obtaining the valid sample list based on the
sampling criteria, a cross checking between
the two lists was performed to ensure mutual
exclusiveness in the two groups. Moreover,
only one meeting planner per organisation
was chosen in order to avoid multiple responses
from an organisation. Applying these samplescreening criteria, a total of 1124 potential
meeting planner respondents was obtained.
The survey instrument was comprised of 73
questions focusing largely on CVBs’ and
meeting planners’ responses on: (i) marketing

channel usage and preferences; (ii) general attitudes towards each advertising and communication channel; (iii) technology experience; (iv)
constructs influencing attitudes towards and
behavioural intention in the technology adaptation model; (v) organisations’ resources
and technology support; and (vi) demographic
information. The items for the 10 constructs in
the technology adaptation model employed
Venkatesh et al.’s (2003) Unified Theory of
Acceptance and Use of Technology items. The
total 39 items based on a five-point Likert scale
(1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) were
modified within the context of hospitality and
tourism marketing.
The survey was conducted from May 15th to
June 10th, 2006 through the e-survey servers.
In order to increase the response rate, a personalised e-mail showing each individual’s first
and last name was sent and four financial
prizes ($50 dollar gift cards) were offered as
incentives. A follow-up personalised reminder
e-mail was sent two times on May 24th and
June 1st, respectively, to maximise the return
rates. These efforts resulted in 245 of CVB and
226 meeting planners completed responses for
24.01% and 20.1% response rates, respectively.
Preliminary analyses using chi-square tests
were conducted separately for the both groups
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Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners

to investigate the extent and nature of response
bias. In particular, the early respondents (CVBs
= 175; meeting planners = 142) were compared
to the follow-up respondents (CVBs = 70;
meeting planners = 84) in terms of the demographic, professional and geographic information. The results of these analyses showed that
only the type of meeting planners was significantly different (at p = 0.05).
RESULTS
The demographic profiles of the respondents
are summarised in Table 1. Both sampled
groups appear to be fairly representative of the
convention industry reality. For the sample
of CVB marketers, there were slightly more
females (57%) than males, while about 60% of
the respondents were in the age range of 31–50
years. One notable characteristic of the respondents was that a majority (84%) of the CVB
respondents were highly educated (bachelor’s
degree or higher). In regard to the profile of
meeting planners, the most interesting characteristic of the meeting planners was the majority of meeting planners were female (81.7%).
According to Jackson (2003), 20 years ago the
convention and meetings sector was mostly

107

consisted of men, but as the industry grew out
of administrative departments, women in
clerical positions were planning meetings, and
now 89.9% of meeting managers and 85.8% of
meeting directors are women. Another recent
market report (Meetings Focus, 2005) also
showed that the convention and meetings

sector was overwhelmingly comprised of
women, as the survey found. The two major
age groupings of respondents were 31–40
(32.1%) and 41–50 years (31.2%). It was also
observed that over 80% of meeting planners
have at least a bachelor’s degree.
Communication channels include fax,
tra-ditional mail, e-mail, Internet messenger,
telephone and the Web. Parallel questions were
asked on specific communication channels
rather than general communication channels.
The results showed that there were different
perceptions of communication channel usefulness between the two groups (H1 was supported) (see Table 2). More specifically, there
were significant differences between the two
groups for five out of six communication channels. CVBs preferred to use telephone, traditional mail and websites for communicating
with meeting planners, whereas meeting planners favoured e-mail and fax communications.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of respondents
Characteristics
Gender

CVBs

Meeting planners

Frequency

%

Frequency


%

Chi-square

Female
Male

139
105

57.0
43.0

183
41

81.7
18.3

33.27**

Age (years)
21–30
31–40
41–50
51–60
61–70
Over 71


20
57
86
60
20
0

8.2
23.5
35.4
24.7
8.2
0.0

28
71
69
44
6
3

12.7
32.1
31.2
19.9
2.7
1.4

4
35

150
55

1.6
14.3
61.5
22.5

4
43
134
44

1.8
19.1
59.6
19.6

Education
High school
Some college
Bachelor’s degree
Master’s or PhD

16.72**

2.18

** p < 0.01
CVBs, convention and visitor bureaus.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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108

D.-Y. Kim, X. Y. Lehto and S. F. Kline

Table 2. Perceived usefulness of communication channels
CVBs (n = 245)
Communication channel
Fax
Traditional mail
e-mail
Internet messenger
Telephone
WWW

MP (n = 226)

Mean (ranking)

t

1.46 (5)
2.44 (4)
3.27 (2)
1.43 (6)

3.30 (1)
3.11 (3)

1.75 (5)
1.92 (4)
3.43 (1)
1.35 (6)
2.88 (3)
2.89 (2)

−2.62**
5.46**
−1.98*
0.58
4.30**
2.16*

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01
Measured on a five-point Likert-type scale: not useful (1), somewhat useful (2), useful (3), very useful (4).
CVBs, convention and visitor bureaus; MP, meeting planners.

Table 3. Comparison of primary advertising channels
CVBs (n = 245)
Advertising channels
Trade magazines
Consumer magazines
Portal website
CVB website
Brochures
Newspapers

TV
Radio
Personal sales and word of mouth

MP (n = 226)

Frequency (%)
57 (23.3)
96 (39.2)
3 (1.2)
13 (5.3)
23 (9.4)
11 (4.5)
23 (9.4)
3 (1.2)
16 (6.5)

Chi-square
28 (12.4)
1 (0.4)
5 (2.2)
32 (14.2)
11 (4.9)
0
0
0
149 (65.9)

259.56**


** p < 0.01
CVBs, convention and visitor bureaus; MP, meeting planners.

Meeting planners had higher preferences for
new channels (e-mail and the Web) over
traditional ones (traditional mail and fax).
To measure differences in advertising
channel usage, one set of equivalent questions
was given to the two groups. In the set of parallel questions, CVBs were regarded as senders
of advertisements and meeting planners as
audiences. In order to identify main advertising channels, advertising budget apportionments were used for CVBs (i.e. ‘Which
advertising channel does your organisation
spend the most amount of money for advertising and promotion?’). The degree of influence
of advertising channel was employed for
meeting planners (i.e. ‘Overall, which advertising channel influences you the most in regard
to your site selection?’). The results of the comparison between the two groups showed statistical differences based on a chi-square test.
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

One notable finding was that about 66% of the
meeting planners indicated that personal sales
and word of mouth (WOM) was the most
influential channel. CVB websites (14.2%) were
the second most influential, followed by trade
magazines (12.4%). However, the CVB respondents indicated that two printed materials;
consumer (39.2%) and trade magazines (23.3%),
were where they allocated the majority of their
advertising budgets.
This appears to suggest that there are advertising channel discrepancies between CVBs
and meeting planners (H2 is supported) (see
Table 3). Even with the fact that not all of CVBs’

advertising is focused on meeting planners,
meeting planners are still one of their main
target markets; about 40% of CVB respondents
counted meeting planners as their main target
market. The results also illustrated that meeting
planners are more likely to be influenced by
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 103–115 (2010)
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Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners
personal sales, WOM and CVB websites. Some
14.2% of the meeting planners rated CVB websites as the most influential channel, but only
5.3% of CVBs spent a majority of their advertising budgets on their websites. Some 62.5% of
CVB respondents indicated that their main
advertising channels were either trade or consumer magazines, but only 12.8% of meeting
planners responded that they were influenced
the most by these two types of magazine
advertisements.
The next phase of channel comparison was
about channel usage and perception of usefulness of each advertising channel. Except for
trade magazines and CVB websites, all channels showed statistically significantly differences for channel usage by chi-square tests (H3
is supported). In terms of perceived advertising effects, CVB respondents’ perceptions of
virtually all channels were higher than meeting
planners’ scores (H4 was supported) (see Table
4). It can reasonably be assumed that CVBs as
advertisers or advertising sponsors are more
likely to perceive advertising effects in a more
positive way. A critical point of the result is
that there is no significant difference for CVB

websites and trade magazines in terms of
general usage. Moreover, CVB websites were
the most used communication channel by the
two groups. Additionally, both groups perceived CVB Websites to be more useful than
other channels.
Correspondence analysis was employed to
examine the underlying relationships between
advertising channels and perceived advertising effects for both groups. This is an interdependence technique suited for simultaneous
analysis of multiple categorical data. A set of
objects and attributes can be presented graphically in a joint space to reveal the relations
among row and column variables, which
cannot easily be exposed by multiple pair-wise
comparisons (Hair et al., 1998; Weller and
Romney, 1990). Correspondence analysis provides singular values that are statistical measures describing the number of dimensions
and the proportion of variance explained by
each dimension. According to Hair et al. (1998),
the values should be greater than 0.20 to be
accepted as a viable dimension. This study
shows that two dimensions’ singular values
for both groups were over 0.20. With regard to
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

109

the explained proportion of inertia between
the nine advertising channels and five advertising effects in CVBs, the first two dimensions
accounted for 81.0% of the variance, with 44.6%
of the variance (singular value = 0.28) accounted
for by the first dimension and 36.4% of the
variance (singular value = 0.26) accounted for

by the second dimension.
The results of this analysis are visualised in
Figure 1. Based on the CVB respondents’ perspective, consumer magazines had a strong
linkage to delivering ‘detailed information’
and generating ‘request information’. Personal
sales and WOM and trade magazines appeared
to be more closely related to creating a ‘positive image of destination’. It was notable that
the results for the other advertising channels
included in the study (i.e. Internet, newspapers, TV and radio) were not clearly related to
any of the various advertising effect measures.
For the meeting planner group, the two-dimensional solution explained 92% of the variance
in the data, with the first dimension accounting for 67% (singular value = 0.37) and the
second dimension accounting for 25% (singular value = 0.23). The correspondence map for
meeting planners was somewhat different than
for the CVB respondents.
As shown in Figure 2, personal sales and
WOM had strong linkages to ‘request information’, obtaining ‘detailed information’ and
‘awareness of destinations’. Similar to CVBs,
trade magazines were closely related to creating a ‘positive image of destination’.
The two correspondence analyses indicated
that the relationship between advertising
channels and effects varied between the CVB
respondents and meeting planners (H5 is supported). There were, however, some common
relationships between the two. First, trade
magazines had a strong linkage to creating a
‘positive image’ of the destination. Apart from
trade and consumer magazines, and personal
sales/WOM, all other channels did not have
any strong relationships with advertising
effects for both groups.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
The results of this study show that there are
clear channel discrepancies between CVB
respondents and meeting planners in term of
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 103–115 (2010)
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D.-Y. Kim, X. Y. Lehto and S. F. Kline

Table 4. Comparison of the advertising channel usage and perceived usefulness
CVBs

Meeting planners

Frequency (%) mean

Frequency (%) mean

Chi-square

Use of trade magazines
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

183 (75.0)

3.44
3.51
3.03
3.51

152 (67.9)
3.11
3.17
3.13
3.64

2.93

Use of consumer magazines
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

203 (83.5)
3.88
3.91
3.68
3.79

70 (31.4)
3.11
3.05
2.92
3.34


130.34**

Use of portal websites
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

66 (27.2)
3.62
3.39
3.37
3.33

78 (35.3)
2.91
3.14
3.19
2.94

3.58*

Use of CVB websites
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

219 (90.9)

4.26
4.41
4.15
4.12

190 (86.4)
3.09
3.90
3.51
3.35

2.36

Use of collateral/brochures
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

231 (95.1)
4.06
4.26
3.76
3.97

149 (67.7)
3.01
3.51
3.35
3.50


58.64**

Use of newspapers
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

148 (61.7)
3.65
3.63
3.50
3.72

22 (9.8)
2.39
2.51
2.49
2.60

134.15**

Use of TV
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

84 (35.0)

4.00
4.21
3.58
4.01

30 (13.5)
2.68
2.41
2.51
2.80

28.65**

Use of radio
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

94 (39.0)
3.70
3.47
3.17
3.74

4 (1.8)
1.59
1.47
1.53
1.56


95.00**

228 (95.4)
4.42
4.41
4.28
4.35

219 (99.5)
4.03
3.98
4.02
3.99

Channel advertising effects

Use of personal sales/WOM
Awareness
Positive image
Request information
Reminding

t
3.37**
3.66**
−0.97
−1.50
7.22**
8.32**

6.40**
4.19**
4.38**
1.52
1.08
2.52*
12.46**
7.29**
7.22**
8.21**
11.34**
8.78**
4.16**
5.14**
7.60**
6.38**
5.38**
6.89**
6.61**
9.89**
5.08**
6.23**
8.81**
8.88**
6.07**
10.14**

7.74*
5.40**
5.63**

3.26**
4.77**

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01
Measured on a five-point Likert-type scale: not very useful (1), extremely useful (5).
CVBs, convention and visitor bureaus; WOM, word of mouth.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 103–115 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners

111

2.0
Portal Web

1.0
Awareness
CVB Web

Brochures

Trade M
Positive image

0.0


Detailed Info

Personal Sales

Consumer Magazine

TV
Reminding

Request info
–1.0

Newspapers
Radio

–2.0
–1.5

–1.0

–0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5


2.0

Figure 1. Correspondence analysis of advertising channels and effects for CVBs.
1.5

1.0

Portal Web
Reminding

Brochures

Consumer
Magazines

0.5

CVB Web

Request info

Detailed info

0.0

Personal sales

Awareness


–0.5
Trade M
Positive image

–1.0

–1.5

–2.0
–3.5

–3.0

–2.0

–1.0

0.0

1.0

2.0

Figure 2. Correspondence analysis of advertising channels and effects for meetings planners.

preferences and usage of communication and
advertising channels. The broad parameters
laid out in this study have important implications especially for CVB marketing activities.
CVBs’ main advertising channels (i.e. magaCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


zines, brochures and TV) are different from
the advertising media that meeting planners
mainly receive information from. Particularly,
it appears that the most influential advertising
channel for meeting planners is personal sales
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 103–115 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


112
and WOM. This behaviour pattern can be well
understood in the context of information richness theory (Daft and Lengel, 1986). As a buyer
in charge of group consumption, meeting planners are more likely to rely on rich media such
as face-to-face or telephone communications
(i.e. personal sales/WOM and CVB websites).
This should be a critical finding for CVBs who
want to attract meeting planners to their destinations. Although not all CVBs’ advertising
channels are aimed at meeting planners,
they are still one of the main target markets;
about 40% of the CVB respondents considered
meeting planners as their main target market.
This discrepancy of the usefulness of specific
advertising channels may lead to problems
with marketing strategies, advertising budget
allocations and advertising effectiveness. CVBs
should consider modifying their marketing
and advertising strategies relative to meeting
planners. In fact, it has been an increasingly
common practice for CVBs to provide separate
pages for meeting planners. This research

finding may lend some insight as to what contents and functions can be effective when targeting meeting planners. For example, if CVBs’
websites are where meeting planners seek
richness of information, comprehensive and
detailed information provision with interactive communication possibilities/features can
be one of the key focuses for CVBs when it
comes to content design.
This research shows that meeting planners
clearly have positive attitudes towards the
Internet as a communication and marketing
tool in the workplace. In that sense, CVBs need
to change their paradigm of Internet marketing. The results indicated that only 5% of CVBs
spend most of their advertising budgets on
their websites. On the other hands, most of the
CVBs are still investing the largest portions of
advertising budgets in magazines (over 60%)
and printing brochures and other collateral
(10%). There may be reasons for not investing
in Internet marketing such as high costs, limited
knowledge and intuitive management decisions based on past experience. From a practical perspective, CVBs have been identified as
pivotal in the coordination and promotion of
local destinations. However, the results of this
study seem to question the appropriateness of
CVBs’ current marketing activities for meeting
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

D.-Y. Kim, X. Y. Lehto and S. F. Kline
planners. CVBs may be unaware of these
channel discrepancies and meeting planners’
preference for the Internet as a communication
channel. This study points to the need for the

CVBs to rethink of their current marketing
resource allocations and strategies. It could
help CVBs to develop better advertising and
communication strategies towards meeting
planners.
In light of the relationships between advertising channels and advertising effects, the
results of this study provide valuable insights
into understanding the nature and impact of
hospitality and tourism advertising. First, the
results indicate that there is a different linkage
between advertising channels and advertising
effects with regard to the two different groups.
The findings confirm the results of previous
studies by revealing that the role of advertising
is not limited to stimulating visits to a destination; rather, it includes exposing the destination to potential visitors, creating a positive
image of the destination, and stimulating a
preference for the destination that eventually
leads to actual destination choices (Bojanic,
1991; Weilbacher, 2003; Kim et al., 2005).
Secondly, there are differences between CVB
respondents and meeting planners in terms of
their perceptions of advertising channel effectiveness. CVB respondents perceive consumer
magazines as containing ‘detailed information’
and arousing ‘request information’. Personal
sales and WOM and trade magazines are more
associated with creating a ‘positive image of
destination’. In the case of meeting planners,
personal sales and WOM have a strong linkage
to ‘request information’, obtaining ‘detailed
information’ and ‘awareness of destinations’,

whereas trade magazines were closely associated with having a ‘positive image of destination’. Practically, these findings should provide
CVBs with pointers for designing more effective advertising strategies, and particularly for
better alignment of advertising channels to the
aims of their advertising campaign for meeting
planners.
In all, this study bears theoretical and practical contributions. First, this study provides
an overview of organisational theories and
thoughts on channel preferences in the hospitality and tourism area. This research calls for
the need for marketers on both sides to allocate
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 103–115 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Organisational Discrepancies between CVBs and Meeting Planners
their marketing and advertising budgets more
appropriately by understanding differences in
reciprocal channel preferences. Better knowledge of each other’s channel preference and
usage can lead to more effective communications and marketing strategies. This study can
be used as a basis for more extensive examinations of organisational communication behaviours, and empirical testing of the complex
relationships that influence the extent of organisational channel usages and preferences.
Future research can be designed around developing a greater understanding of an organisation’s channel usages and preferences, and the
complex phenomenon resulting from the interaction among the characteristics of organisations, organisational resources and technology
adaptation. In this sense, more studies are
needed to draw a complete picture of organisational channel behaviour in the context of
tourism and hospitality.
This study also has some limitations and the
results should be interpreted with these limitations in mind. The study used convenience sampling, and consequently the results of this
research cannot be generalised to represent all
CVBs and meeting planners. Second, the design
of one snapshot survey might not accurately

capture the dynamics of organisational channel
preferences. In this sense, a longitudinal, realtime study is recommended to increase internal
validity by enabling the research to track cause
and effect. Further, using a self-administered
questionnaire to measure a large quantity of
variables may have led to hidden biases and
response fatigue. With these recognitions, more
research should be replicated with a broader
random sample to verify the results.
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
Published online 23 June 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.738

Testing the Impact of a Promotional
Video on Destination Image Change:
Application of China as a Tourism
Destination
Amir Shani1,*, Po-Ju Chen2, Youcheng Wang2 and Nan Hua2
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Eilat Campus, Eilat, Israel
2
Rosen College of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

1

ABSTRACT
This study empirically examines the
potential effects of a promotional video on
the image change of China as a travel
destination. The analysis is based on an

experimental study conducted among
young, international short-term employees
in the USA. Despite positive changes in
almost all the destination attributes as a
result of watching the promotional video,
the structure of the image constructs
remains fairly stable, providing critical
insights on the potential role of publicity
campaigns in affecting destination images.
Results of the study reveal that China’s
image consists of mixed and often
contrasting representations, especially the
polarity of modernisation and progress
versus nature and history. It was found
that the dominant factor affecting the
respondents’ behavioural intentions was the
cultural and nature tourism dimension.
Although other image dimensions exhibit
influence as well, findings of this study
suggest that perceived value should be a
strategic focus in promoting China as a
desirable travel destination, in addition to
culture and nature tourism. This paper ends
with conclusions and implications for both
research on destination image and
destination marketing in China. Copyright
© 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
*Correspondence to: Mr. A. Shani, Lecturer, Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev, Eilat Campus, Hatmarim Blvd.
Eilat 88000, Israel.

Email:

Received 15 March 2009; Revised 20 May 2009; Accepted 21
May 2009

Keywords: destination image; China;
destination marketing; tourism marketing.
INTRODUCTION

T

he growing empirical evidence in contemporary destination marketing literature support the fact that destination
image plays a crucial role in tourists’ buying
behaviour (e.g. Pearce, 1982; Sirgy and Su,
2000). As noted by Gallarza et al. (2002), previous studies focused much attention on the
meaning and composition of destination image,
resulting in a wide variety of definitions and
models depicting the essence and the construct
of the concept. In an often-cited conceptualisation, Crompton (1979) argued that a destination image constitutes the beliefs, ideas and
impressions a person holds about a certain
destination. Other definitions (e.g. Fakeye and
Crompton, 1991; MacKay and Fesenmaier,
1997) followed a similar line of thought, with
a general agreement that destination image
refers to a tourist-based image (i.e. one’s
subjective impression of a place) rather than a
marketer-based image (i.e. the promoted image
of the destination) (Li and Vogelsong, 2006). In
other words, the image people have in mind
regarding a destination might not be akin to

the image that is projected by the destination
marketers.
Most researchers acknowledge the influence
of destination image on traveller’s decisionmaking regarding destination selection (Baloglu
and McCleary, 1999; Chen and Tsai, 2007).
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Application of China as a Tourism Destination
O’Leary and Deegan (2003) mentioned that
images aid travellers to differentiate between
destinations especially when prices are comparable. Furthermore, achieving a preferable
image is particularly critical when one wants
to promote a remote or unknown destination.
Marketing organisations must transfer the
potential traveller from a stage of unawareness
to a stage of awareness (Yüksel and Akgül,
2007). Although ‘a clear understanding of
travellers’ images is crucial for developing
successful positioning strategies’ (Sönmez and
Sirakaya, 2002, p. 185), many factors can potentially influence destination image. Gartner
(1993) described a wide variety of forces that
act separately or jointly to form a destination
image in the eyes of the potential/actual tourist,
ranging from induced sources (traditional
forms of advertising generated by the destination or intermediary on its behalf) and autonomous sources (e.g. independently produced
image agents such as books, movies, documentaries, news and social networks in the Internet) to organic sources (e.g. information gained
from word of mouth communication and/or
previous travel to the destination).
There is growing evidence that indicates that

autonomous sources enjoy a higher degree of
reliability among potential travellers, and they
are typically more significant than more formal
types of information in forming a destination
image (Kim and Richardson, 2003; Beerli and
Martín, 2004). Therefore, the boundaries
between the induced and autonomous factors
seem to have blurred in recent years, as marketers have implemented various destination
promotion strategies to influence what was
typically perceived as autonomous sources.
These strategies include establishing media
relations with journalists and media networks
(Lubbers, 2005) or exploiting films and television shows for marketing opportunities
(Hudson and Ritchie, 2006). However, as noted
by Dore and Crouch (2003), further research is
required in this important area, as the evaluation of these publicity techniques has not been
sufficient to understand whether they are effective or not.
Despite the extensive research conducted in
this area, gaps can be identified in the literature on destination image. Various researchers
have pointed out that there have not been
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

117
enough empirical studies focusing on change
of destination image (e.g. Baloglu and
McCleary, 1999; Govers et al., 2007). Tasci and
Gartner (2007, p. 414) stated that image formation is ‘a construction of a mental representation of a destination on the basis of information
cues delivered by the image formation agents
and selected by a person’. Information on the
effectiveness of these image makers is vital for

the efforts of destination marketers to increase
the awareness of potential visitors regarding
the destination, resulting in the likelihood of
them visiting the destination in the future
(Yüksel and Akgül, 2007). In addition, despite
evidence that destination image is vital in the
case of lesser-known destinations, most image
studies in tourism have focused on Western
countries and destinations, while developing
and less-developed countries have received
much less research attention (Schneider and
Sönmez, 1999; Sönmez and Sirakaya, 2002).
The current study aims at filling these gaps
in the literature by exploring the change of
destination image of China in the eyes of
young international short-term employees of a
major US company. Although China is emerging as one of the leading tourist destinations
worldwide, it is still an understudied destination in the tourism literature (Ryan and Gu,
2007). Investigating the destination image of
China has also contemporary relevance, as the
country has been struggling in recent years to
improve its national and tourism images. These
attempts reached their peak prior to China’s
hosting of the Olympic Games in August 2008
with an increasing number of marketing campaigns including hiring international media
expertise, sponsoring cultural events and producing promotional videos (Wang, 2003; Xu,
2006). Examining the effects of watching a promotional video on the change of destination
image of China will shed light on the understanding of the effectiveness of such publicity
campaigns on destination image. The promotional video of the Beijing Olympics was used
as a tool to achieve the purpose of the study.

PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGNS AND
IMAGE CHANGE
The recognition of the economic importance of
tourism has led many destinations to establish
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
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118
agencies, divisions or organisations with the
main purpose of promoting travel and tourism
to the destination. Buhalis (2000, p. 112) stated
that ‘promoting destinations essentially implies
the development of communication channels
with clientele and other stakeholders to increase
awareness and persuade them to purchase
products’. Destination marketing organisations (DMOs) have a wide range of tools to use
in promoting the destination, including mass
media advertisements, participation in tourism
and travel fairs, direct marketing, brochures,
replies to people who request information
about the destination and more.
Yet these sources are not necessarily the ones
that have the most influence on potential visitors. A recent study by Govers et al. (2007)
found that autonomous and covert-induced
agents such as television, magazines, Internet,
books and movies, are more popular information sources than overt-induced agents such as
advertising. This finding led the researchers to
suggest that destinations integrate marketing
communication into channels that are usually

perceived as ‘autonomous’.
Indeed, many destinations have developed
various media strategies to deal with positive/
negative coverage in the news and to establish
favourable media reporting (Lubbers, 2005;
Avraham and Ketter, 2006). There is growing
evidence of a significant increase in tourists
visiting destinations where popular movies
and television shows were set (Tooke and
Baker, 1996; Riley et al., 1998;). These findings
led Hudson and Ritchie (2006) to recommend
that destinations should exploit film marketing
opportunities. In addition, if destinations want
to take advantage of autonomous and covertinduced agents, the Internet can also be
expected to play an important role for DMOs
in the near future, especially in light of the
increasing popularity of blogging and online
social networks.
Whatever technique a DMO chooses to
employ, it is typically operated and financed
through governmental support (e.g. many are
funded by collecting bed tax). As a result,
DMOs are increasingly being held accountable
by their stakeholders and elected officials for
generating tourism dollars and are required to
provide evidence of adequate returns for the
often costly marketing expenditures (ScoenCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A. Shani et al.
bachler et al., 1995). Therefore, formulating

techniques for measuring the effectiveness of
marketing programmes are receiving growing
attention from both researchers and destination marketers (Crouch, 1994; Faulkner, 1997;
Butterfield et al., 1998).
The goals of measuring marketing programmes are threefold: (i) to assess the performance of the chosen strategy and justify the
investment; (ii) to provide valuable information regarding what marketing techniques are
effective; and (iii) to assist in the decisionmaking regarding budget allocation and/
or future campaigns (Mitchell, 2005). Yet,
evaluating the effectiveness of marketing programmes is a challenging task due to the complexity of destination marketing and difficulty
in accurately tracking tourists’ expenditures.
For that reason, it is often wise to use various
assessment techniques to provide a full picture
of marketing effectiveness.
Besides the use of conversion studies as
a popular technique (Kim et al., 2005), researchers propose true or quasi-experimental
studies to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing programmes. For example, McWilliams
and Crompton (1997) conducted a quasiexperimental field study in eight US cities.
They did a survey among a cross-sectional
sample to find out their attitudes towards visiting a certain destination before an advertising
campaign and a second survey among another
cross-sectional sample was conducted after
the advertising campaign. By doing this, the
researchers were able to estimate the percentage of people who were influenced by the
advertisements to visit the destination in the
future. However, these techniques are often
expensive and require a significant amount of
time to implement.
Other studies have adopted a general econometric perspective. Kim et al. (2005) stated
that these studies usually attempt to specify
an aggregated model on possible sources for

tourist flow to the destination (including marketing investments), and estimate the marginal
number of visits and the economic impacts
of these visits as a result of the marketing
programmes. Using regression analyses, it is
possible to assess whether marketing has a significant effect on tourist arrivals and/or tourist
receipts (Kulendran and Divisekera, 2007).
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Application of China as a Tourism Destination
Despite the appeal of this approach, it has significant limitations, partially owing to the difficulty of establishing a cause–effect relationship
between marketing and demand (Crouch et al.,
1992) and the fact that it neglects the travellers’
actual decision-making processes (Kim et al.,
2005).
Despite the differences between all the aforementioned techniques of evaluating marketing
effectiveness, their common dominator is the
underlying assumption that the major objective of marketing campaigns is to generate/
increase tourist arrivals and/or tourist receipts.
As noted by Shcoenbachler et al. (1995, p. 4),
‘this assumption ignores other relevant advertising objectives and effects such as increased
awareness and image and positive attitude
change’. Positive image change towards a
destination as a result of marketing campaign
might result in a visit in the long term that is
not reflected in studies focusing on short-term
effects. Understanding destination image
change as a result of a promotional campaign
is crucial since it provides specific implications

for future campaigns regarding image dimensions (either positive or negative) that require
special considerations on behalf of the destination marketers. In addition, many destinations
also have non-touristic objectives in promoting
their destinations such as improving their
national image as a whole and leveraging their
international status. For these reasons, examining the effects of a promotional campaign or
certain components of it on the destination
image can provide valuable information (in
addition to other indicators) to various stakeholders concerning its effectiveness.
DESTINATION IMAGE OF CHINA
Although China did not open its doors to international tourism until 1978, it has emerged as
one of the prominent tourist destinations in
the world. Yu and Smith (2007) reported that
tourism in the country is growing extensively
in inbound, domestic and outbound markets,
bringing extensive investments to China’s
tourism and hospitality sectors. International
tourist arrivals to China have increased from
27.5 million visitors in 1990 to 124 million
visitors in 2006, resulting in over 5.6 million
people employed in the tourism and hospitalCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

119
ity industries in 2005 (Gu et al., 2007; Wang,
2008). As of 2006, China was ranked fourth
globally in terms of tourist arrivals and fifth in
terms of tourist receipts (WTO, 2007). As a
result, the hotel supply in the country has
increased 10-fold in the past 12 years (Ryan
and Gu, 2007). Beyond the clear economic

benefits gained from tourism, China sees the
tourism industry as a way to significantly
heighten its national image, which is still
controversial, especially in the Western world
(Wang, 2003).
As one part of its attempts to improve its
standing, China staged the Beijing Olympics as
a mega-event to present its image as an international co-operator and a harmonious society
by promoting the harmonisation of East–West
civilisations (Xu, 2006). Such mega-events in
the past have shown not only to have sportive
and economical contributions to the host
country but also to significantly raise the
awareness and knowledge of people regarding
the destination (Lee et al., 2005). According to
a recent survey, 93% of the Chinese population
believed that hosting the Olympic Games
would improve the country’s international
image (Gardner, 2008).
Despite its emergence as a prominent tourist
destination, China is still struggling with a
problematic national image that might prevent
its tourism industry from developing to its
full potential. Wang (2003) found that despite
China’s increasing openness and co-operation
with the international community in the past
25 years, the perceptions of China held by
people in Western countries are still primarily
negative. For example, Americans see China
as militant, aggressive and authoritarian. The

association of China with unpopular notions
such as communism and socialism, as well as
contention issues such as human rights and the
political status of Taiwan, have also claimed to
have a crucial influence on the coverage of
China in the US media (Yan, 1998; Fan, 2006).
Similar to many other nations in the globalisation era, China has been making constant
attempts to improve its representations in the
international media and to have a positive
effect on the public’s opinion towards the
country. For example, Zhang and Cameron
(2003) described and examined the massive
public relations campaign launched by the
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
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120
Chinese government in the USA at the beginning of the current millennium. In addition to
the exposure of Chinese officials in the US
media, the campaign also included special
events throughout the USA such as the ‘2000
US Tour of Chinese Culture’, and ‘China Disabled People’s Arts Performing Troupe’. It was
found that the campaign had a certain positive
effect on the coverage of China in some US
newspapers, even though these changes were
only ephemeral.
As might be expected, the controversial
international image of China has had an impact
on the image of China as a tourist destination.

In an early study, Gartner and Shen (1992)
compared the image of China in the eyes of US
respondents between two points in time: before
and after the Tiananmen Square conflict in
June 1989. The results showed that the violent
incident resulted in the decline of most of the
touristic images of the country, including their
perception of service-related attributes, and
safety and security issues within the destination. More recently, Xiao and Mair (2006)
investigated articles from 19 international
English newspapers and analysed their representations of China as a tourist destination.
They called their findings ‘a paradox of images’,
as China was often portrayed with contrasting
images. More negative dimensions in the image
of China as reflected in the media were related
to China’s policies and politics, international
relations, safety/environment/health and, to a
lesser degree, transit/transportation and business/economy. On the other hand, China was
typically described in positive terms regarding
its culture/history/art, recreation/leisure,
tourist sites and attractions as well as food/
lifestyle.
Despite these researchers’ contributions
towards an understanding of the destination
image of China, for the most part, they reflect
an image portrayed by editors and writers in
selected magazines and do not necessarily
reflect the image potential tourists have
in mind regarding China. Several previous
studies examined the destination image of

special regions of the country such as Hong
Kong (Choi et al., 1999), Macao (McCartney,
2005) and Tibet (Mercille, 2005), yet, they
possess distinct characteristics from mainland
China and cannot be regarded as representaCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A. Shani et al.
tive of the country as a whole. In addition,
even though China has used various means to
generate and sustain a favourable image
(Richards, 2001), especially in preparation for
the Beijing Olympic Games (Xu, 2006), the
degree to which these techniques are effective
is still uncertain and deserves further examination. Investigating the effects of promotional
and publicity efforts is important, since they
are increasingly used by local DMOs as well as
by national tourism organisations (Dore and
Crouch, 2003).
METHODOLOGY
Study instrument
A survey instrument was developed to measure
the perceived image of China by the participants. First, a list of destination image attributes was constructed based on an extensive
literature review in the areas of destination
image. Second, several focus group sessions
using 47 international travellers were conducted to modify the list of destination image
attributes in order to fit the context of the
study — China. The participants in the sessions shared the same characteristics as those
who were intended to take part in the main
study. Each of the focus groups consisted of
eight to 10 participants representing countries

in Asia, Europe and the Americas. The focus
group meetings were conducted in order to
generate information related to two issues:
destination image attributes in general and
destination image attributes of China. In order
to reach the second goal, a video, ‘China
Forever’, was shown to the participants. This
procedure was designed to elicit induced destination images of China generated from the
information cue in the video. The participants
were asked to add additional attributes of
China illustrated in the tourism promotional
video. On average, the focus group meetings,
video viewing and attribute generation took
approximately two hours to complete and the
results were then integrated into the final
version of the study instrument. In addition to
the generic destination image attributes identified through literature review, the focus group
sessions contributed the following specific
destination image attributes of China: unique
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Application of China as a Tourism Destination
historic and cultural attractions (i.e. Great Wall,
Terracotta Warriors, etc.), exotic oriental atmosphere, big and heavily populated, and diverse
and unique ethnic groups and cultures. The
final version of the survey included 28 destination image attributes of China.
Procedure and measurements
The study was conducted among 217 international short-term employees of a major US

company in the southeastern region of the
USA. All participants were young and collegeeducated individuals, temporarily residing
and working in the USA (for practical training). The study participants’ permanent
residences were in countries in Asia, South
America, Europe and Africa (including the
Middle East countries). All respondents had
travelled internationally during the last five
years. Those who have visited China and/or
seen the promotional video prior to the experiment (n = 22) were excluded from the current
analysis, as their image of the destination is
likely to be influenced by past experience (see
Hui and Wan, 2003). This allows for a more
accurate assessment of the promotional film’s
effects on the participants’ perceptions. Consequently, the final sample was comprised of 195
participants. The study took place a few hours
before the official opening ceremony of the
Beijing Olympic Games. As part of the experimental design, the participants were asked to
independently complete a survey before and
after watching the promotional video. The participants were instructed not to share views
and opinions during the experiment, including
the screening of video, in order to prevent any
response bias to emerge.
Two sections of the survey were relevant to
the current analysis. First, the participants
were asked to indicate on a Likert scale ranging
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)
the extent to which they agreed that the 28
attributes were representative of China as a
vacation destination. Owing to combined
efforts of relevant literature review and focus

group sessions, the set of destination image
attributes were deemed relevant specifically to
the context of China and the Olympic Games.
Second, the participants were asked to indicate
their awareness of China as a travel destination
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

121
in the future, their current desire to visit China,
the likelihood they will visit China in the future
and their level of interest in getting more information about China as a travel destination.
These scale items were based on the hierarchy
of effects model (Strong, 1925), which are
commonly used to measure the impact of
advertising.
The video
The video chosen in this study is called ‘China
Forever’, and was produced by the Beijing
Organizing Committee for the XXIX Olympiad
Games as part of the public relations campaign.
The video’s goal is similar to other marketing
tools used by tourist organisations to portray
destinations as having ‘both unique experiences and a wide range of attributes with high
utility value such as landscape, climate, geographical location, quality of tourist facilities,
friendliness, security, history, indigenous
people and shopping’ (Waitt, 1996). The
video placed specific emphasis on China’s rich
history, heritage, natural resources as well as
modern tourist amenities (e.g. shopping
malls).

The video is eight minutes and 19 seconds
long and is available on the official website of
the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee
( It was also
posted by Internet users on various video
sharing websites such as YouTube, Google
Video and Clipser. These sites are usually
perceived as independent and neutral, and
are typically used to establish social networks
between Internet users rather than for commercial purposes (Cheng et al., 2007). Therefore, a promotional video posted on such a site
either by destination marketers or by independent users might be in the grey area between
induced and autonomous information sources,
especially when there is no clear indication
regarding the origin of the video, which applies
in the case of ‘China Forever’.
STUDY RESULTS
Of the 195 participants, 65% were female and
35% male. The majority of the respondents had
a college degree, were in their 20s and single.
The participants were mainly from Brazil
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
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122
(28.2%), France (17.9%) and Britain (15.4%),
followed by Portugal (10.8%), Mexico (6.7%),
Taiwan (6.2%) and Colombia (5.1%). Relating
to their travel experience, the majority of the
participants (69%) travelled three or more

times outside their own countries in the past
five years.
Image change
The participants were asked to evaluate each
of the 28 attributes describing China as a travel
destination. To examine the impact of the promotional video on the participants’ perceptions of China, paired sample t tests were
conducted on the attributes as presented before
and after watching the video (see Table 1). Of
the 28 attributes, 25 showed significant positive changes after the participants watched the
video, all in positive directions. The mean (M)
scores of the following attributes showed the
largest increases: ‘refreshing/relaxing atmosphere’ (mean difference (md) = 1.06, p < 0.001),
‘clean environment’ (md = 0.81, p < 0.001),
‘pleasant weather’ (md = 0.64, p < 0.001), ‘open
and welcoming’ (md = 0.63, p < 0.001),
‘advanced tourism industry’ (md = 0.61, p <
0.001), ‘safe’ (md = 0.61, p < 0.001) and ‘exotic
oriental atmosphere’ (md = 0.60, p < 0.001). The
only attributes that did not show statistically
significant changes were ‘big and heavily
populated’, ‘high tech’ and ‘inexpensive
travel’.
In addition to the M score comparisons
between pre- and post-tests, the stability of
each item’s score was also examined by calculating its coefficients of variations (CV). CV is
a normalised measure of probability distribution that is computed by dividing the standard
deviation (SD) with the mean. Although CV is
similar to the SD, as it indicates the dispersion
of a variable, it is a more effective measurement of score distribution. The reason for this
is that SD must always be interpreted in light

of the data mean, while CV is a dimensionless
figure and its interpretation is independent
from the variables’ original measurement unit.
Generally, a higher CV value points to a greater
dispersion and, thus, to a lesser stability of the
M score.
As can be seen in Table 1, in all image attributes, with the exception of ‘good value for
money’, the CV values decreased in the postCopyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A. Shani et al.
test, in comparison to the pre-test, indicating
that the M scores became more stable, with less
dispersion among the participants. In other
words, in addition to the increase in the M
scores of most of the image attributes, watching the promotional video also increased the
consensus among the participants regarding
the extent to which each image item represents
China.
Although the promotional video had a significant and positive impact on the scores of
89% of the attributes, the respondents ranked
the attributes almost identically in pre- and
post-tests. It is noteworthy that in both preand post-tests, the same 10 attributes received
the highest scores. Both before and after watching the video, the most dominant attributes of
China chosen by the participants were ‘unique
historic and cultural attractions’, ‘big and
heavily populated’, ‘exotic oriental atmosphere’, ‘unique natural attractions’, ‘high
tech’, ‘variety of unique Chinese events and
festivals’, ‘diverse and unique ethnic groups
and cultures’, ‘great shopping opportunities’,
‘modern’ and ‘a trip to China is absolutely

worth telling’.
Similarly, 9 out of the 10 attributes that
received the lowest scores in the pre-test also
received the lowest scores in the post-test:
‘inexpensive travel’, ‘socially and politically
stable’, ‘easy accessibility’, ‘safe’, ‘a major
sports power’, ‘clean environment’, ‘convenient local transportation’, ‘great nightlife and
entertainment’, ‘good value for money’ and
‘pleasant weather’. The only notable change
appeared in the ranking of the following attributes: ‘refreshing/relaxing atmosphere’ (from
a rank of 21 in the pre-test to 12 in the post-test)
and ‘good value for money’ (from a rank of 14
in the pre-test to 20 in the post-test).
Structure of image
To examine the structure of the destination
image of China in the eyes of the participants,
exploratory factor analyses were utilised on
the image attributes in both the pre-test and
the post-test data. The principal component
analysis with Varimax rotation was used to
reveal the image dimensions of China and to
examine whether any changes occurred as a
result of watching the promotional video. The
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

5.15

4.52
4.72
4.90
4.96
4.37
5.81
5.49
4.51
5.31
5.14
5.69
5.22
4.95
4.79
5.21
4.76
4.26
4.50
5.26
5.34
3.91
6.04
4.58
4.40
3.75
5.45
6.04

18
26

23
9
7
27
2
20
24
28
6
1

Mean

12
21
19
16
14
25
3
5
22
8
13
4
10
15
17
11


Rank

1.22
1.37
1.58
1.34
1.19

1.61
1.11

1.59
1.41
1.42
1.44
1.49

1.41
1.58
1.31
1.37
1.33
1.40
1.28
1.22
1.40
1.42
1.31
1.26
1.42

1.28
1.38
1.37

SD

Post-test

* Statistically significant at the 5% significance level.
** Statistically significant at the 0.1% significance level.
Note: CV = SD/Mean.
a
Scale ranges from 1 to 7, with 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree.
SD, standard deviation; CV, coefficients of variations; d.f., degrees of freedom.

Refreshing/relaxing atmosphere
Clean environment
Pleasant weather
Open and welcoming
Advanced tourism industry
Safe
Exotic oriental atmosphere
Variety of unique Chinese events and festivals
Great nightlife and entertainment
Modern
Suitable accommodations (hotels, resorts, etc.)
Unique natural attractions
A trip to China is absolutely worth telling
Various recreational opportunities
Friendly people

Adequate tourism infrastructure (airport,
highway, hotels, shopping, etc.)
Appealing local food and beverage
Easy accessibility
Convenient local transportation
Great shopping opportunities
Diverse and unique ethnic groups and
cultures
Socially and politically stable
Unique historic and cultural attractions
(i.e. Great Wall, Terracotta warriors, etc.)
Good value for money
A major sports power
Inexpensive travel
High tech
Big and heavily populated

Destination attribute

a

Table 1. Paired sample t test on 28 destination image attributes

0.27
0.31
0.42
0.25
0.20

0.41

0.18

0.33
0.33
0.32
0.27
0.28

0.27
0.35
0.28
0.28
0.27
0.32
0.22
0.22
0.31
0.27
0.25
0.22
0.27
0.26
0.29
0.26

CV

14
19
28

3
1

27
2

17
24
20
8
6

21
26
22
18
15
25
4
7
23
9
12
5
10
13
16
11

Rank


4.39
4.23
3.58
5.31
6.02

3.58
5.76

4.31
3.83
4.09
4.89
4.98

4.08
3.71
4.08
4.27
4.35
3.76
5.21
4.91
3.94
4.77
4.59
5.17
4.77
4.49

4.34
4.75

Mean

1.18
1.43
1.60
1.44
1.30

1.49
1.27

1.61
1.39
1.37
1.49
1.54

1.46
1.57
1.21
1.45
1.43
1.45
1.30
1.38
1.40
1.48

1.35
1.32
1.35
1.24
1.41
1.39

SD

Pre-test

0.27
0.34
0.45
0.27
0.22

0.42
0.22

0.37
0.36
0.33
0.30
0.31

0.36
0.42
0.30
0.34

0.33
0.39
0.25
0.28
0.36
0.31
0.29
0.26
0.28
0.28
0.32
0.29

CV

0.19
0.17
0.17
0.14
0.02

0.33
0.28

0.45
0.43
0.40
0.37
0.36


1.06
0.81
0.64
0.63
0.61
0.61
0.60
0.58
0.57
0.55
0.55
0.52
0.46
0.46
0.46
0.45

Mean difference

192
192
193
192
192

191
192

193
192

192
192
192

192
193
188
192
193
191
193
189
191
193
193
192
188
190
192
193

d.f.

−2.371*
−2.222*
−1.607
−1.746
−0.222

−3.865**

−3.919**

−5.153**
−4.355**
−4.229**
−4.042**
−4.027**

−10.758**
−8.008**
−7.313**
−7.421**
−7.967**
−6.674**
−7.374**
−6.390**
−5.224**
−6.852**
−6.977**
−6.319**
−5.935**
−5.632**
−5.575**
−5.713**

t value

Application of China as a Tourism Destination
123


Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


124
suitability of the data for factor analysis was
determined by the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO)
test that was conducted for the pre-test and the
post-test. The KMO for both data exceeded the
minimum required value (0.7) for conducting
factor analysis (pre-test: 0.901; post-test: 0.928)
(see Vogt, 2005). In addition, the Bartlett’s
test of sphericity also indicated that the data
is appropriate for factor analysis (pre-test:
2041.76, p < 0.001; post-test: 2415.84, p < 0.001)
(see Cramer and Howitt, 2004). The number of
factors in each analysis was determined based
on their Eigenvalues (only those with value of
above 1 were included) and the examination of
the screen plot (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2000).
Following the recommendation of Stevens
(2002), items that were highly loaded on more
than one factor and items with factor loading
of less than 0.40 were excluded from the
analyses.
The factor analyses for the pre-test and the
post-test data are presented in Tables 2 and 3
respectively. As can be seen, four factors
emerged for the pre-test data, explaining
58.36% of the total variance. The first factor,

‘infrastructure and superstructure’, consisted
of 10 items such as adequate tourism infrastructure, suitable accommodations, convenient local transportation, great night life
and entertainment, and easy accessibility. The
factor accounted for 36.87% of the variance
with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.90. The second
factor, ‘hospitability and comfort/security’,
consisted of six items such as refreshing/relaxing atmosphere, socially and politically stable,
pleasant weather, and friendly people. The
factor accounted for 9.81% of the variance with
a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.79. The third factor,
‘culture and nature tourism’, consisted of five
items such as unique historic and cultural
attractions, unique natural attractions, and
diverse and unique ethnic groups and cultures.
The factor accounted for 6.40% of the variance
with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.79. Finally, the
fourth factor, ‘perceived value’, consisted of
two items only: ‘inexpensive travel’ and ‘good
value for money spent’. The factor accounted
for 5.29% of the variance with a Cronbach’s
alpha of 0.44. Note that while the Cronbach’s
alpha for factors one to three are considered to
be fairly high, factor four has only a moderate
level of reliability, which is typical of factors
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A. Shani et al.
comprising of a small number of items (Poria
et al., 2006).
Similarly, four factors emerged from the

factor analysis for the post-test data, explaining 63.64% of the variance and representing
the four themes described earlier. Nevertheless, in the case of the post-test data, the
‘hospitability and comfort/security’ factor,
consisting of seven items, explains the majority
of the variance (45.54%) with a Cronbach’s
alpha of 0.88. In addition to the six items that
appeared in this factor for the pre-test, the item
‘safe’ was included as well. Next, the ‘infrastructure and superstructure’ factor, consisting
of eight items, explains 7.15% of the variance
with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.915. The difference between this factor and its pre-test equivalent was the inclusion of the items ‘various
recreational opportunities’, ‘easy accessibility’
and ‘safe’ in the pre-test and the inclusion of
the item ‘great shopping opportunities’ in the
post-test. As in the pre-test factor analysis, the
third factor was ‘culture and nature tourism’,
consisting of five items and explaining 6.17%
of the variance with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.80.
The difference between this factor and its pretest equivalent was the inclusion of the item ‘a
trip to China is absolutely worth telling’ in the
pre-test and the item ‘exotic oriental atmosphere’ in the post-test. Finally, the fourth
factor was ‘perceived value’, consisting of the
same two items as its pre-test equivalent
and explaining 5.29% of the variance with a
Cronbach’s alpha of 0.435.
Overall, the factor analyses revealed similar
image dimensions for pre-test and post-test
data, with only minor differences between the
two. Note that in both cases the factor receiving the highest average score was ‘culture and
nature tourism’ (pre-test: M = 5.12; post-test: M
= 5.67), followed by ‘infrastructure and superstructure’ (pre-test: M = 4.39; post-test: M =

5.04) and ‘hospitability and comfort/security’
(pre-test: M = 4.00; post-test: M = 4.63). The
factor receiving the lowest average score was
‘perceived value’ (pre-test: M = 3.99; post-test:
M = 4.16).
Behavioural intentions
Along with the positive changes in the vast
majority of the image attributes’ scores that
Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

0.770
0.673
0.545
0.513
0.722
0.609

5.12 (1.01)

Culture and nature tourism
Unique historic and cultural attractions (i.e. Great Wall,
Terracotta warriors, etc.)
Unique natural attractions
Variety of unique Chinese events and festivals
A trip to China is absolutely worth telling
Diverse and unique ethnic groups and cultures


Perceived value
Inexpensive travel
Good value for money

1.216

1.472

2.255

8.480

Eigenvalue

KMO = 0.901; Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity = 2041.759 at d.f. = 253 with a significance of <0.001.
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis; Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
SD, standard deviation; KMO, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin.

3.99 (1.13)

0.742
0.627
0.606
0.603
0.599
0.474

4.00 (1.00)


Hospitability and comfort/security
Refreshing/relaxing atmosphere
Socially and politically stable
Pleasant weather
Open and welcoming
Clean environment
Friendly people
0.823

0.753
0.712
0.670
0.622
0.614
0.573
0.546
0.503

0.793
0.775

Factor
loading

4.39 (1.01)

Composite
mean (SD)

Infrastructure and superstructure

Modern
Adequate tourism infrastructure (airport, highway, hotels,
shopping, etc.)
High tech
Suitable accommodations (hotels, resorts, etc.)
Convenient local transportation
Advanced tourism industry
Great nightlife and entertainment
Safe
Various recreational opportunities
Easy accessibility

Factors

Table 2. Factor analysis of the destination image attributes — pre-test

5.286

6.399

9.806

36.872

% of
variance

58.363

53.077


46.677

36.872

Cumulative %
of variance

0.435

0.791

0.792

0.900

Cronbach’s
alpha

Application of China as a Tourism Destination
125

Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr


Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

0.893
0.457


Perceived value
Inexpensive travel
Good value for money

0.777

1.052

1.357

1.572

10.019

Eigenvalue

KMO = 0.928; Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity = 2415.840 at d.f. = 231 with a significance of <0.001.
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
SD, standard deviation; KMO, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin.

4.16 (1.15)

0.731
0.726
0.637
0.500

5.67 (0.96)


Culture and nature tourism
Unique historic and cultural attractions (i.e. Great Wall,
Terracotta warriors, etc.)
Unique natural attractions
Variety of unique Chinese events and festivals
Exotic oriental atmosphere
Diverse and unique ethnic groups and cultures

0.672
0.612
0.611
0.596
0.588

0.818
0.798
0.691

5.04 (1.09)

Infrastructure and superstructure
High tech
Modern
Adequate tourism infrastructure (airport, highway, hotels,
shopping, etc.)
Great shopping opportunities
Suitable accommodations (hotels, resorts, etc.)
Convenient local transportation
Advanced tourism industry
Great nightlife and entertainment


0.719
0.716
0.697
0.688
0.647
0.591
0.564

Factor
loading

4.63 (1.11)

Composite
mean (SD)

Hospitability and comfort/security
Pleasant weather
Socially and politically stable
Clean environment
Friendly people
Open and welcoming
Safe
Refreshing/relaxing atmosphere

Factors

Table 3. Factor analysis of the destination image attributes — post-test


4.780

6.170

7.145

45.540

% of
variance

63.635

58.854

52.685

45.540

Cumulative %
of variance

0.515

0.804

0.915

0.882


Cronbach’s
alpha

126
A. Shani et al.

Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 116–133 (2010)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr