Identification and Prioritization of City Identity Criteria Based on Primary and Secondary Mental Image of Tourists (Experimental Study: Babolsar City)

Improving tourists' mental image of a destination is one of the approaches in tourism development. The identity of a city, has a great impact on tourists' mental image. So this paper aims to recognize and prioritize o the identity-related criteria of a city that have a higher impact on tourists' mental image. According to this, as a first step, 9 criteria, that have high impacts on tourists' mental image, are evolved based on the internal and external instance and interviews with experts. To verify the impact of 9 criteria on tourists' initial or pre-trip mental image, at first, 30 persons that have not ever come to Babolsar were deeply interviewed. Also to examine the post-trip or secondary mental image of Babolsar tourist, 98 tourists were selected considering Cochran's error coefficient of 10 percent to fill a questionnaire of 35 questions. The questions were determined based on 9 evolved criteria. The answers were analyzed and sorted based on Friedman Test. Finally, the most important identity-related criteria with a high impact on the initial and secondary mental image are acquired.The results demonstrate that "Discriminative and uniqueness" and "Environmental characteristics" criteria are of high significance. On the other hand, "Culture and customs" and "Physical properties" criteria have not a proper impact on tourists' mental image which means of these identity-related criteria of Babolsar are neglected in city development. Based on the results, The present research has suggestions for Babolsar's development plans, to improve its physical and cultural situation.