Color Perception And Group Differences In Tourist Destinations

Local culture can be expressed through color.Applying color in tourism destination marketing is beneficial to inherit local culture,manifest local feature and enhance tourism attraction,by doing that,tourists can also form a more positive image of destination.If only we understand tourists' color cognition regularity and their group differences,it could not only be helpful for DMOs to design color image which is more suitable for tourists' expectation,as well as be beneficial to reasonably design color image for tourism destination,tourism website,tourism propaganda and tourism product,but could also carry on differentiated color marketing towards different groups to attract different market segment and optimize their tourism affective experience.With the help of relevant theoretical knowledge including chromatics,color psychology,color culture,color geography and color marketing,putting forward the definition of color cognition of tourism destination,which refers to a comprehensive results related to the psychological cognition of destination color.These processes take tourism destination as the color cognitive target,in the base of tourists' psychological activities of perception,appearance,memory,thinking and so on,tourists cognize destination color in the aspects of attributes,concepts,preferences and attitudes,then tourists extract color perceptions or color memories in a selectivity and generality way.This paper use grounded theory,chi-square test,correspondence analysis and other methods,take Xi'an and Hangzhou city as two case study and Chinese as the study subject.The concept and definition of tourists' color cognition in tourism destination is put forward,the dimensions structure of tourists' color cognition of Xi'an and Hangzhou are respectively constructed,and cultural groups and non-cultural groups' color cognition traits of Xi'an and Hangzhou were analyzed.In addition,it's determined whether the destination type,cultural factors and non-cultural factors are the influencing factors of tourists' color cognition in tourism destination.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Tourists'color cognition results of Hangzhou are more consistent and abundant than Xi'an.From the perspective of dimensions structure of tourists' color cognitive of destination,tourists will form their own color cognition of destination through seven dimensions:tourist attraction,historical culture,natural environment,cultural environment,geographic location,local atmosphere and personal preference.However,the dimensions structure of tourists' color cognition of Xi'an and Hangzhou are different.The three dimensions of tourism attraction,historical culture and natural environment are the main dimensions of Xi'an,and tourist attraction,natural environment and cultural environment are the main dimensions of Hangzhou.The color cognition evaluation in tourism destination indicate that Hangzhou are better than Xi'an.(2)There are group differences in color cognition of destination,cultural groups(such as regional cultural groups,intergenerational cultural groups)and non-cultural groups'(such as gender groups,age groups,education level groups and professional groups)color cognition trait in destination are different.There is a significant difference of regional cultural groups' color cognition of Xi'an,but no significant difference of regional cultural groups' color cognition of Hangzhou,and Beijing cultural group have a more consistent in color cognition of destination than Bashu cultural group.The intergenerational cultural groups have significant difference of color cognition of Xi'an and Hangzhou,and the 90' s have a more consistent in color cognition of destination than post-70's.The gender groups have significant difference of color cognition of Xi'an and Hangzhou,and male group are more consistent in color cognition of destination than female group.Age groups have significant difference of color cognition of Xi'an and Hangzhou,and younger group are more consistent in color cognition of destination than older group.Education groups have significant differences of color cognition of Xi'an and Hangzhou,and higher education level group are more consistent in color cognition of destination than lower education level group.There is a significant difference of professional groups'color cognition of Xi'an,but no significant difference of professional groups' color cognition of Hangzhou,and corporate staff group is more consistent in color cognition of destination than commercial group.(3)The influencing factors of color cognition in destination include destination type,cultural factors and non-cultural factors.The effect of destination type in color cognition of destination shows that destination type affects tourists' color cognition difficulty,tourists' color cognition results and dimensions structure of tourists' color cognition.The influence of cultural factors show that tourists' regional culture and intergenerational cultural traits will all affect their color cognition of destination.The influence of non-cultural factors show that tourists' gender,age,education level,and occupational traits will all affect their color cognition of destination.The innovations of this paper are:(1)The study put forward the conception and definition of color cognition of tourism destination.(2)The study reveals the color cognition traits of destination of different groups,and initially find out that destination types,cultural factors,and non-cultural factors are the influencing factors of color cognition of destination.Research prospects:(1)In terms of research content,the influencing factors of color cognitive of destination can be studied to analyze the influence mechanism of destination type,cultural factors and non-cultural factors in the future.(2)In terms of data sources,it can establish a color database in the future,and use psychometric cognitive experiments to study the discipline of color cognition of destination.