A Study On Relationship Among Region Personality, Place Attachment And Tourist Loyalty

Destination personality. the application of brand personality to tourism destinations, is still a relatively new topic. A distinctive and attractive destination personality can facilitate differentiation of a destination from that of its competitors. and develop strong emotional ties between visitors and destinations. The special relationship between people and land is the place attachment. Place attachment has important significance to tourists'intention to return and visitor loyalty.Researching the destination personality, place attachment, visitor loyalty as a system, this study will investigate the perceived destination personality of Dalian. First, this paper reviews the literature of destination personality. place attachment and visitor loyalty, looking for theoretical basis and methods. On the basis of the existing research, this paper adopts a structured questionnaire to select the appropriate brand personality scale, in order to explore the perceived destination personality of Dalian. A convenience sample of 166 visitors to Dalian was surveyed on line, and 157 usable questionnaires were analyzed. The software SPSS 17.0 was used to analyze the data. The main conclusions of the research show that:Firstly, the study indicates that tourists do attribute personality characteristics to tourism destinations. This is in line with previous research on destination personality. Five dimensions of destination personality emerged for Dalian in this study: generosity, innovative, dynamic, fun, elegant. The findings of this study indicate that destination personality has a positive impact on visitor loyalty. "Fun" dimension has the greatest impact on the visitor loyalty, which is in line with the essence of tourists seeking pleasure.Secondly, the destination personality, which will enhance the emotional connection between tourists and tourist destination, has a positive impact to place attachment, significantly. The most personality traits are related to psychological terms, and thus place identity has a more positive impact to place attachment than place dependence. Among the five personality dimensions, the "fun" is the greatest impact on the place identity:and "innovative" is the greatest impact on the place dependence.Thirdly. place attachment has a positive impact on visitor loyalty. Place identity has a more impact on visitor loyalty than place dependence.In short, both destination personality and place attachment have significant positive impact on visitor loyalty. But, not every personality dimension plays the same role. In this study, "generosity" and "fun" are the most important dimensions. both of them have a very strong influence to place attachment and visitor loyalty. The two dimensions are emotional expression, in line with destination brand attributes as a pleasure enjoyed product.Thus, Dalian as the romantic capital, in highlighting the romantic, fashion personality, should also be to strengthen the "generosity", "fun". By shaping the distinctive personality, a deep emotional connection is established between tourists and destination, developed visitor loyalty from the psychological attachment.