| The influx of tourists into urban areas had become a widespread phenomenon,as individuals increasingly seek distinctive and memorable tourism experiences within cities.However,many urban tourism destinations prioritized commercial development models,disregarding the local characteristics and cultural connotations that contribute to a strong commercial ambiance and a sense of being overrun by tourists.Through differentiated positioning,deliberate shaping,and effective dissemination of brand personality,urban tourism destinations could successfully break free from this paradigm and imbue themselves with unique attributes and sustainable competitive advantage.To date,research on brand personality had predominantly focused on tangible products,neglecting the examination of experiential offerings such as tourist destinations.Additionally,studies explored the brand personality of tourist destinations have primarily concentrated on non-urban settings,such as national parks and scenic areas,while investigations into urban tourist destinations had been relatively limited.The objective of this article was to utilize Nanchang City in Jiangxi Province as a case study to comprehensively analyze the constituent dimensions and index system of Nanchang’s tourism brand personality.Building upon this analysis,the article aimed to propose strategies for shaping and promoting the brand personality of Nanchang’s tourism industry.A three-step research methodology was employed to achieve the aforementioned objectives,yielding the following key findings:The first step of the study involved analyzing the composition dimension and index system of Nanchang’s tourism brand personality.To gather data,popular domestic travel websites like Ctrip and Qunar were crawled using specialized tools to capture tourist reviews about Nanchang.The ROST Content Mining software was then employed to extract adjectives from these reviews,resulting in a collection of 111 words that described Nanchang.Through a process utilizing the Delphi expert method,an initial scale of brand personality comprising 18 high-frequency words was formed.These words included descriptors such as long history,charm,modernity,red,hero,happiness and comfort.Subsequently,these 18 high-frequency words were incorporated into a questionnaire,and exploratory factor analysis was employed to assess the reliability of the survey results.Drawing from Aaker’s brand personality theory,the 18 words were further categorized into three dimensions: sophisticated,enterprising and joy.Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to validate the reasonability of the dimension induction.The fitness of the CFA model of Nanchang’s tourism brand personality was examined,and assessments were made regarding the convergent validity,composite reliability,and discriminant validity of the scale.The results demonstrated that the model’s chi-square value,chi-square degrees of freedom,and TLI values fell within the acceptable range,indicating a good fit of the CFA model.Additionally,the AVE value and CR value exceeded 0.5 and 0.7 respectively,indicating satisfactory convergent validity and composite reliability of the scale.Moreover,all correlation coefficients were lower than the square root of AVE,indicating good discriminant validity of the scale.The second step of the study aimed to unveil the relationship between Nanchang’s tourism brand personality,self-consistency,and tourism intention,while specifically examining the mediating effect of self-consistency.To achieve this,a structural equation model was constructed to analyze the interplay among these variables.Path coefficient analysis and mediation effect tests were conducted.The findings of the study indicated that Nanchang’s tourism brand personality exerts a significant positive impact on tourism intention.Furthermore,the mediating effect of self-consistency was observed.Both ideal self-congruity and actual self-congruity were found to significantly and positively influence travel intentions,with ideal self-congruity exhibiting a greater influence than actual self-congruity.The third step of the study aimed to elucidate the strengths of Nanchang’s tourism elements and resource endowment.It sought to uncover the perceptual differences among various demographic groups regarding the personality of Nanchang’s tourism brand and establish the strategies for shaping and disseminating Nanchang’s tourism brand personality.To shape the sophisticated dimension of Nanchang’s tourism brand personality,four key aspects were identified: historical background,local culture,cultural environment,and academic negotiations.The enterprising dimension could be shaped through three focal points: red education,technological innovation,and modern cities.Lastly,the joy dimension could be cultivated through four aspects: entertainment activities,gastronomic experiences,festival events,and green ecology.The study found no significant variation in the perception of the three dimensions among different occupational groups.However,notable differences were observed in the perception of these dimensions across groups with varying gender,places of residence,age,education,and income levels.Consequently,it is recommended to create tailored Nanchang tourism characteristics and cultural tourism intellectual properties(IPs)based on the characteristics of the target audience.Furthermore,the implementation of precise organizational communication and word-of-mouth promotion should leverage new media platforms,digital technologies,and other relevant tools.This thesis presented a pioneering analysis of the compositional dimensions and index system of Nanchang tourism brand personality.It also uncovered the variations in perception of Nanchang tourism brand personality among different demographic groups.Furthermore,it established the relationship between Nanchang tourism brand personality,self-consistency,and travel intention,highlighting the mediating effect of self-consistency.These findings contributed to bridging the gap between brand personality and travel intention,providing valuable insights for Nanchang in overcoming the challenges of city homogenization and enhancing its tourism’s soft power. |
