A Comparative Study On The Tourism Image Of The First And Returning Countries

In recent years, as the external communication of China’s national image and the brand made in China be putted on the agenda of the national image transmission formally, how to build the national tourism image scientifically and disseminate it effectively has rise to a national strategy both by the State Department and the National Tourism Administration, they put this as a strategic support to strengthen Chinese cultural soft power and an affective carrier to enhance Chinese national influence. National tourism image is an important object and content in international tourism image research, but the domestic academic’s research on China’s national tourism image is still very weak. Contrasting the China national tourism image of first-time and repeat visitors not only can enrich and deepen the domestic research contents of tourism image, and it also has important practical significance to construct scientifically and spread effectively China national tourism image. Therefore, this paper based on primary data obtained from questionnaire survey, using factor analysis method, comparative analysis and social network analysis method, contrast the China national tourism image from four aspects between first-time and repeat visitors, such as cognitive image, stereotypes, affective image and unique image, and we propose strategies to improve China national tourism image. The conclusions of the research are as follows:(1)The first-time and repeat visitors’ China tourism cognitive image can be divided into six dimensions, such as tourism attractions, local environment, infrastructure, tourism environment, tourism expenditure, relaxation and entertainment. There also exist differences in different dimensions between different groups. The evaluation of China tourism cognitive image cognitive factors between first-time and repeat visitors are highly consistent, the evaluation of first-time visitors is slightly higher than repeat visitors.(2)The stereotypes between first-time and repeat visitors are consistent. In the stereotypical vocabulary from our survey, "Great Wall" is the most popular words both in first-time and repeat visitors. In the tourist stereotype associated vocabulary network, "Great Wall" is both core node and transit node word in two groups of tourism.(3)The China tourism affective image between first-time and repeat visitors is positive, and the tourism satisfaction, recommendation intention and revisit intention are high. Among them, the revisit intentions of repeat visitors are higher than first-time visitors and the recommendation intention are lower than first-time visitors. It significant correlation at 0.01 level between evaluation result of China tourism and satisfaction、revisit intentions、recommendations intention of first-time and repeat visitors.(4)The unique image between first-time and repeat visitors is consistent, but the number of vocabulary related to destinations from repeat visitors is more than that from first-time visitors.(5)The frequency of China tourism stereotype, affective image, unique image of first-time and repeat visitors presents exponential attenuation, there are only three to four high-frequency words. The vocabulary between China tourism stereotype and unique image are higher consistent in first-time visitors than that in repeat visitors, that means the understanding of first-time visitors are concentrated and the understanding of repeat visitors are relative dispersion.The innovation of this paper is that we contrasted the China national tourism image between first-time and repeat visitors, and we researched the stereotypes associated vocabulary network structure by using the social network analysis method.