The communicative effect of message presentation and sequencing on tourist destination selection

In the marketplace, consumers can be persuaded toward potential tourism destinations through interpersonal conversations with friends and family and through such means as advertising and publicity in the mass media. However, it is unclear whether advertising or publicity, or a specific sequencing of the two methods (i.e., advertising-then-publicity or publicity-then-advertising), is the most effective at persuading potential tourists to visit a specific destination.; The proposed Framework for the Study of Persuasive Communication in Tourism Marketing attempts to address specific issues of importance to the tourism industry. Of particular significance is the issue of credibility to both message strength and message acceptance, which has been shown to lead to both beliefs and overall attitude toward the destination, and then to purchase intent. Credibility is critical due to the intangible nature of the tourism product and the risk associated with destination selection.; Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to examine the persuasive effects of message presentation (i.e., advertising or publicity) and sequencing (i.e., advertising-then-publicity or publicity-then-advertising) on the effectiveness of marketing of a tourist destination. This research attempts to test (1) whether there is a difference between advertising and publicity on message acceptance and message response and (2) how the sequencing of publicity and advertising effects message processing. Six dependent variables are studied: message strength, perceived credibility, belief strength, belief confidence, attitude toward the destination, and purchase intent.; Results of the study show that publicity, in either presentation or sequencing, created significantly higher mean scores than advertising for five of the seven dependent variables tested. For message presentation, respondents who viewed publicity-only generated significantly higher mean scores than those who viewed advertising-only for the variables perceived credibility, belief strength, total expectancy of attributes and purchase intent. Concerning message sequencing, publicity-then-advertising was significantly higher than advertising-only for perceived credibility, belief strength, and purchase intent. Publicity-then-advertising was also significantly higher than advertising-then-publicity for perceived credibility.; This study reveals that publicity is an important element in the tourism marketing mix. Furthermore, it implies that a publicity-then-advertising strategy is the most effective at persuading potential tourists to visit a specific destination.