LITERATURE REVIEW OF OVERSEAS RESEARCH ON DESTINATION PERCEPTION
ZHONG Li-na1, WU Bi-hu2, XU Xiao-bo2, XU Yi-wen3
1. The School of Tourism Management, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing 100024, China;
2. Center for Recreation and Tourism Research, College of Urban and Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;
3. Hainan Development and Reform Committee, Haikou 570100, China
Abstract：Destination perception has become a focus of tourism research which attracted numbers of tourism researchers. The research of perception is originated from international academic environment. So it has a long research history, fast development and abundant results in the international academic publications. Within these abundance works, some new ideas and new research methods could be good reference to domestic researchers. Using a wide variety of English sources, mainly from international leading tourism literatures, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyses the history,research methods, scopes and main research areas of destination perception. The paper defines four research stages of destination perception research and points out the characteristics of each research phase. The most used research methods and important areas are also reviewed in chronologic order. This paper points out the development of the research methods are firstly using simple qualitative method and then quantitative and becoming comprehensive qualitative with quantitative contemporary. The different research focuses and thoughts from these two aspects are presented in a comprehensive way in the paper. In the last part, this paper projects future research trend of the international destination perception research and the suggestions for domestic research according to the applicability of the domestic research environment. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavored in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing.
