The unprecedented growth in the tourism industry during the last fifty years has created major challenges in tourism marketing. As more and more areas of the world are developed for tourism, the destination choices available to consumers continue to expand. Furthermore, today's consumers, facilitated by increased leisure time, rising levels of disposable income and more efficient transportation networks, have the means to choose from among this much larger variety of destinations. As a result, tourism marketers are now faced with influencing consumer decision making in an increasingly complex and competitive global marketplace.

The meaning and measurement of destination image.

The purpose of this article is to carefully examine the concept of destination image with the goal of designing more appropriate and rigorous techniques for its measurement. A framework is presented which suggests that to completely measure destination image, several components must be captured. These include attribute-based images, holistic impressions, and functional, psychological, unique and common characteristics. It is proposed that a combination of structured and unstructured methodologies is necessary to measure destination image as envisaged in the conceptual framework. A series of openended questions and scale items are developed and are shown to successfully capture all of the components of destination image.

The Measurement of Destination Image: An Empirical Assessment

Destination image: towards a conceptual framework.

Tourism, Competitiveness, and Societal Prosperity

Destination image analysis—a review of 142 papers from 1973 to 2000

Finland's competitive position as a destination.

Discusses the importance of tourism on a country's overall economy. Highlights Finland as a particular example, where, due to tourism, the balance of trade soared from a $33.1 million deficit in 1963 to a $34 million surplus in 1970. Analyzes various studies into the tourism industry and examines their findings. Uses a sample of 681 foreign tourists visiting Finland as a survey to gauge tourists' perceptions of 12 European tourist destinations. Reveals findings, inter alia, that: Spain is perceived as the best value for money; Holland has strong accessibility; Ireland is ranked last in offering a cultural experience to tourists. Uses data obtained by survey to concentrate on people's perceptions of Finland. Reveals findings, inter alia, that: Finland is most unlike Germany, Spain, Holland and France; Finland is most like Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Concludes that public and private tourism organisations throughout the world need a focused marketing approach to identify the travelling public's needs.

Tourists Perceptions of Finland and Selected European Countries As Travel Destinations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test model depicting the relationships among perceived environmental uncertainty, domestic and foreign networking, and export performance.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from Finland, Sweden and Norway serve as the study setting. Data were collected via mail surveys from random samples of SME owners/managers. Usable responses were 75 from Finland, 111 from Sweden and 71 from Norway.Findings – Of the four dimensions of uncertainty, only uncertainty about supplier markets emerged as a significant driver of domestic networking activities of SMEs. While domestic networking did not have a significant influence, foreign networking showed a significant positive impact on SMEs' export performance. Firm size was found to have positive impacts on foreign networking and export performance.Research limitations/implications – The study was limited to manufacturing SMEs in a particular region. Replicati...

Perceived uncertainty, networking and export performance

This study extends outshopping knowledge from North America to Europe. Outshoppers and non-outshoppers in a Finnish town are compared in terms of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, importance of shopping area choice attributes, perceptions of the local trading area, and purchase localities of products. Implications are drawn and comparisons of results are made to general findings from North America.

Antti Haahti

Papers

Finland's competitive position as a destination.

Tourists Perceptions of Finland and Selected European Countries As Travel Destinations

Perceived uncertainty, networking and export performance

Aspects of Outshopping: Insights from a European Country

Energy conservation among finnish homeowners