Examining the Effects of Potential Tourists’ Destination Familiarity on Destination Image and Travel Intention: A Mixed Approach of PLS-SEM and fsQCA

Dimin Wang

SAGE Open, 2025, vol. 15, issue 1, 21582440251319612

Abstract: A conceptual framework was proposed to examine the inter-relationships among non-behavioral destination familiarity (self-described, educational, and informational familiarity), destination image, and travel intention in the context of US tourists visiting Singapore. A total of 313 usable online survey responses were collected via Qualtrics; the data were analyzed through Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The results confirmed that informational familiarity and self-described familiarity all positively influenced prospective US tourists’ destination image perceptions and travel intentions. The findings concluded that destination familiarity, specifically non-behavioral aspects played important roles in shaping tourists’ perceptions and decision-making. Moreover, the cognitive destination image can be influenced by affective destination image, and the former was key to influence tourists’ travel intention. The joint analysis of PLS-SEM and fsQCA provided a fine-graiend insights into the variable relationships. Managerial implications are proposed for tourism organizations to understand tourists’ behaviors better.

Keywords: destination familiarity; destination image; travel intention; Singapore; US tourists (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440251319612 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:1:p:21582440251319612

DOI: 10.1177/21582440251319612

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().