THE RELATIONSHIPS OF DESTINATION IMAGE, SATISFACTION, AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTIONS: AN INTEGRATED MODEL

Built upon the tourism and marketing literature, a conceptual model depicting the relationship among tourism destination image components, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions was proposed. A conceptual model consisting of six hypotheses was empirically tested using survey data from 550 Chinese tourists who visited Zhang-Jia-Jie, a major Chinese tourism destination shown on the list of the World Natural Heritage. The empirical findings reveal that: (a) overall tourism destination is reflected by both cognitive image and affective image, and (b) overall tourism destination image has an indirect impact on behavioral intentions through satisfaction. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed before the article concludes with limitations and directions for future research.