Research On The Difference Of Tourist Destination Image Group Based On Perceived Distance

Cognitive distance refers to estimated distance from one place to another place according to the memory of information as well as his personal understanding. It is a situational constraints formed by social psychological process, and it is the mental representation of actual distance molded by an individual's social, cultural background and general life experiences. In the tourism activities, the distance between origin and destination is an important restrictive factor in the most tourists' destination selection process. Existing studies have shown that cognitive distance has impact significantly stronger on tourism decision-making behavior than the effect of actual distance. Putting forward the standard metrics of cognitive distance will help to explain the tourists travel behavior. However, the standard of cognitive distance research and the group differences research of tourism destination image of the tourists of different standard of cognitive distance are still blank fields so far. The group differences research of tourism destination image based on the standard of cognitive distance not only can enrich and deepen the research contents of tourist destination image, but also to provide a new way of thinking for tourism market segmentation, and has practical guidance value for tourism destination marketing.This paper adopts the method of contrastive analysis, panel discussion method, single factor variance analysis etc., takes Hangzhou as case, takes domestic tourists' tourism destination image as objects, to analyze the standard of cognitive distance, and to divide tourists into the groups based on the standard of cognitive distance, to research the group characteristics of tourists of different standard of cognitive distance, and to compare the group differences of tourism destination image of the tourists of different standard of cognitive distance, the main conclusions are as below:(1) The domestic tourist standard of cognitive distance of Chinese has been put forward, namely when linear distance is less than or equal to 160 kilometers and time distance is less than or equal to 1.5 hours, people feel "very close"; When linear distance is in the range of 160-400 kilometers and time distance is in the range of 1.5-8 hours, people feel "close"; When linear distance is in the range of 400-1550 kilometers and time distance is in the range of 8-36 hours, people feel "far"; When linear distance is more than or equal to 1550 kilometers and time distance is more than or equal to 36 hours, people feel "very far".(2) According to the standard of cognitive distance, Tourist groups are divided into three groups whose standard of cognitive distance is "smaller", "moderate","bigger". The characteristics of group that is of "smaller" standard of cognitive distance are:low income and education, partial introverted personality, few relatives or friends in Hangzhou, private cars and road trips, lack of tourism experience, relatively few people for the purpose of visiting friends, business meetings and others; The characteristics of group that is of "bigger" standard of cognitive distance are:high income and education, partial outgoing, more relatives or friends in Hangzhou, private cars and road trips, rich tourism experience, relatively more people for the purpose of visiting friends, business meetings and others; The characteristics of group that is of "moderate" standard of cognitive distance are medium.(3) There are significant differences of Hangzhou tourism destination image of the groups of different standard of cognitive distance. The group of "smaller" standard of cognitive distance has worse Hangzhou tourism cognitive image, affective image and conative image, the group of "bigger" standard of cognitive distance has better Hangzhou tourism cognitive image, affective image and conative image, the group of "moderate" standard of cognitive distance has medium Hangzhou tourism cognitive image, affective image and conative image.The innovations:The standard of cognitive distance has been put forward, and this paper comes up with a new way of thinking that tourist groups are divided based on the standard of cognitive distance, and finds that there are significant differences of tourism destination image of the groups of different standard of cognitive distance.