Impact of the image and character of the destination and their impact on theattitude and intention of choosing a tourism destination Case Study:Tehran City

One of the new topics in tourism researches is the personality of tourism destination, which faces many questions and ambiguities and has not yet been definitively answered. Destination personality refers to human traits of destination, but there are many differences between researchers in describing these traits. Urban branding is a factor that is closely related to the role of the city and is one of the important factors in defining the identity and personality of the city and creates a good mental image for the city. Many governments have invested heavily in improving the image of specific locations, thereby improving the state of their economies. Positive brand perceptions make customers choose a destination that has a more attractive brand, therefore, destinations must make significant efforts to create the right brand for the tourism destination. Destination personality is an important factor in creating a destination brand. Destination personality is derived from the concept of brand. This study seeks to identify the important effects of the image and personality of destination on the decision and selection of it by tourist in order to show the importance of these two in strengthening the relationship of tourist and destination, and also analyze the important role of the two components of image and attitude on the choice of destination and the preference of a destination over another destination by tourists. Identifying the effective factors on the relationship of tourist and destination and the results can help destination marketing managers to make the destination more distinct, guide the destination branding process in a direction that establishes a strong emotional and lasting relationship between destination and tourist.

The present study is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive and survey research in view point of method. The approach of this research is quantitative. The strategy of the present study is survey and the main purpose of the research is to explain and predict which has been done in a single section. The method of data collection in this study is the use of a questionnaire. The scope of this research is from March 2017 to June 2016 and a questionnaire was distributed among those who have visited Tehran as a domestic tourist during this period and have chosen it as their tourism destination. Thematically, this study investigates the effect of destination image on destination personality (as well as the effect of destination character on destination image) and attitude towards the destination from the perspective of domestic tourists in Tehran and also the effect of these variables on tourist behavior. Because the population size of this study is unknown, Cochran's formula has been used to calculate the sample size in infinite communities. In the present study, 384 questionnaires have been used for the final analysis of this research. According to the size of the statistical population, the available sampling method was used. 

Findings of this study showed that the attitude towards the intention to travel to the destination has a positive and significant effect on behavioral intention. In addition, the results indicated that although cities and tourism destinations are inanimate elements, tourists often consider them to have personality and human characteristics. Officials and decision makers of the country should pay special attention to creating a brand personality for all cities in Iran. The findings of the study on first hypothesis indicated that brand personality has an effect on the brand image of the tourism destination. These results are in line with the findings of Kim and Lee (2015) and Swedin et al. (2017). Also, the results of the study on the second hypothesis demonstrated that the personality of the tourism destination has a significant positive effect on attitudes toward the destination. The findings on third hypothesis indicated that the personality of the destination has a positive effect on the image of the destination. In other words, the personality of the destination can also affect the attitude of tourists to tourism cities, and when the attitude of tourists to a tourism destination changes, their intention to visit the destination will be strengthened.

The results of this study showed that a strong reputation of a city has a positive effect on the image of the destination, perceived value, loyalty to the destination and, ultimately, on tourist satisfaction. Findings of the study support the results of Baloglu and McClory (1999), Kim and Lee (2015) and Swedin et al. (2017). Since a tourism city can be considered as a brand consisting of tangible and intangible features, Tourism marketers should use this feature and focus more on measuring and enhancing their perceived personality and image of the city, to expand and promote the brand of their desired tourism destinations. They can enhance the image of the destination by using of the physical characteristics of the destination (beautiful scenery, beaches, parks, cultural and festival events, shopping facilities, friendly locals), and for the character of the destination, they can use character descriptors such as attractiveness, modern, reliable, exciting, up-to-date, friendly, cheerful, unique ones. On the other hand, the results of this study expressed that one of the first significant features that describe Tehran's image in terms of tourism is, its historical areas. The character of the city plays an important role in the success of tourism destinations. The results of this study showed that today a unique personality has been designed for all successful tourism cities in the world. Also, the results demonstrated that the concept of tourism city personality is used to describe the characteristics and differentiate tourism destinations and the personality of each tourism city can play a major role in creating the image of that city.