Research On The Influence Of Cognitive Distance On Tourists' Destination Choice Intention

An old saying goes that: “Distance creates beauty”,but not only the literates,“Distance creates beauty” applies to destination choice behavior.Distance is an important factor affecting human spatial behavior,the essence and condition of tourism,and also a key factor for tourists to consider when choosing destinations.The classic theory of“distance decay”in tourism research field holds that the number of tourists decreases with the increase of distance,which is the "distance friction" effect in tourism destination selection.However,some studies show that although too far distance will hinder tourists,too close distance will make tourists lose their aesthetic interest.Therefore,in order to obtain the best travel experience,tourists often choose the right distance,even some tourists will Desire for distance.In addition,the simple physical distance can not adapt to the research of tourism destination choice behavior under the background of "space-time compression".It is more appropriate to study the tourists' destination choice intention from the perspective of perceived distance.So what is the attitude of tourists towards distance? How does perceived distance affect their willingness to choose?What is the psychological mechanism and theoretical boundary of perception distance acting on tourists' destination choice intention? This paper studies the above topics systematically through three studies.In Study 1,three sub studies are used to study the conditions that trigger tourists' travel intention,the reasons why tourists choose destinations under different conditions and their attitudes towards cognitive distance.In the sub study 1,the conditions that trigger the tourist's travel intention are studied by open questionnaire.The results show that the conditions that trigger the tourist's travel intention can be divided into two categories: realistic and ideal.In sub study 2,more than 15000 words of research materials were collected through open questionnaires.Through text analysis,the results show that people's perception distance of the selected tourist destination in real conditions is nearer than that in ideal conditions.In sub study 3,3790 data are obtained through questionnaire survey.Through data analysis,it is found that the destination of tourists' wishes is far away from their current location or their hometown.In other words,people are more willing to travel to the destination which is far away from their perception.Study 2 mainly examines the effect and mechanism of cognitive distance on the tourist's travel intention.Firstly,the pre-experiment studies the measure of the self-consistency of tourists in the Chinese context.Secondly,through three experiments,the influence of the cognitive distance of tourists on their destination choice behavior is tested.And the mediation role of self-congruity was tested through an experiment 2.Study 3 examined the moderate effect of product types and social identity through two pre-experiments and two formal experiments.The results show that the interaction between cognitive distance and product type has a significant impact on tourist's travel intention.For hedonic products,the perceived distance has a significant impact on destinations travel intention,but is not significant in utilitarian products.The interaction between perceived distance and social identity has a significant impact on tourists' destination choice behavior.Specifically,for those tourism destinations image with high social identity,the cognitive distance significantly affects tourists' travel intention,but when with a low social identity,the influence is not significant.Through deep and systematic studies,this paper explores the relationship between coginitve distance and destination travel intention,and clarifies the mechanism and explores the theoretical boundaries of this psychological mechanism,namely "types of tourism products" and "social identity." This research has theoretical and management practical significance to some extent.In theory,the theory of perceived distance and self consistency is introduced into the study of destination choice behavior.The conclusion of the study can enrich the relevant knowledge of "distance attenuation" theory and make up for the deficiency of the existing study on destination choice behavior of tourists.At the same time,this paper also expands the research and application of self-image consistency in tourism situation,which will help tourism consumers in the future study of decision-making behavior provides the possibility of reference.The conclusion of this paper can also be used to guide the marketing practice of tourism destinations.Theoretically,it can make up for the existing research on tourists' destination choice,and enrich the research on the concept of egoism in the tourism situation,which provides a reference for the future research on tourists' destination choice.The conclusions of this paper can also be applied to the marketing practice guidance of tourism destinations.