Investigating the impact of the host community's behavior on the attraction of tourists through the mediation of the tourist's mental image (Case study: Mashhad city tourists)

The behavior of the host society is one of the main components in attracting and absorbing tourists. If hosts have appropriate behavior accompanied by respect for tourists, the tourists also show more enthusiasm in choosing that destination, leading to the development of tourism in that destination. On the other hand, the impact of tourists' satisfaction with the behavior of the host society and its manifestation leads to a change in their mental image of the destination. The mental image of the destination, which indicates appropriate behavior of tourists, can convince them to travel to the desired tourist destination and attract them towards it, even leading to their recommendation of the destination to other tourists. In this regard, the present research, which is of a practical nature and of a descriptive survey nature, has been conducted using a standard questionnaire as the data collection tool. To ensure the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's alpha was used, and for the validity of the questionnaire structure, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used. The statistical population of the study included all tourists in the city of Mashhad within the time frame of the research. The sample size was determined to be 384 individuals. Non-random sampling method was used. In the descriptive statistics section, frequency and percentage tables, means, and standard deviations were used to display the characteristics of the subjects, and in inferential statistics, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to determine the normality of the distribution, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling tests were used to test the research hypotheses. The results of the study show that the behavior of the host community has a significant impact on attracting tourists, and its mental image mediates this effect.