Author(s)

Songpeng Wang ¹, Zhongtian Du ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of Tourism Management, University of Sanya, Sanya, 572022, China

Corresponding Author

Songpeng Wang

ABSTRACT

Destination image is an important influence on tourists' behavioral decisions, and the construction of an image assessment model based on tourists' perception helps to identify the key variables that influence their cognitive judgments. Taking Sanya as a typical coastal tourist city, we use structural equation modeling to construct a “perception-image” structural path based on tourist questionnaire data and explore the relationship between the six perceptual dimensions on destination image. The study shows that: (1) the four perceptual dimensions of convenience, comfort, safety and knowledge growth have a significant positive impact on the image of a tourist destination, with convenience playing the strongest role; (2) the path coefficients of novelty and unique experience are not significant, reflecting that the marginal effect of differentiated cultural resources on the overall image perception is limited; (3) the tourists' subjective judgments of spatial order, service efficiency and environmental control significantly affect their perception of the destination in coastal tourism scenarios; tourism scenario significantly affects their overall evaluation tendency of the destination.

KEYWORDS

Destination Image; Sanya; Tourist Perception

CITE THIS PAPER

Songpeng Wang, Zhongtian Du, Analysis of Pathways for Optimizing Sanya's Tourism Image Driven by Visitor Perceptions. Tourism Management and Technology Economy (2025) Vol. 8: 196-207. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/tmte.2025.080125.

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