Abstract With the increasingly competitive tourism market climate, positioning has been especially significant in tourism destination marketing. However, there have been limited domestic systematic studies on destination positioning. As to what destination positioning is aimed to, and the scientific destination positioning method, no definite idea has been established. One striking point is:the most principal work step of destination positioning-"grasping tourist's interests and demands" has been underreported in domestic destination studies and practice. Three principles support current domestic destination positioning:based on recourse, guided by market and highlighting distinguishing features. Seeing that situation, this paper makes an in-depth analysis of the "hard hitting" step from both the theoretical and empirical perspectives. Theoretically, selective analyses were made on the relationship between destination salient attributes and destination positioning, and on the errors domestic destination positioning committed in such an aspect. Thus, the conceptual foundation of this study was established. Empirically, initially introducing the Repertory Grid Analysis (RGA) technique in domestic literature, this study demonstrated how to identify the destination salient attributes which tourists use in differentiating competitive destinations when their decision-making by virtue of the elements of ten domestic famous marine city destinations. At last, the theoretical and pragmatic application values, as well as the limitations of the current paper were summarized.
2014, Vol. 29 
