A research for identifiying the relationship between perception management and destination competitiveness

Tourism which is among the top four sectors in the highest export revenue ranking of the world economy, has already become the most important service sector in terms of contribution to international trade. In conjuction with being such a big economic power, tourism has become the most profitable sector in many emerging countries. The prerequisite for increasing countries' share in tourism revenues is being able to achieve competitiveness by attracting more tourists to destination centres where touristic products are offered to visitors as a whole. Yet the most distinct characteristic of a tourism product is that it has an intangible qualification and owing to this fact it is highly open to subjective evaluation. Therefore, the high probability of a relationship between tourist perception regarding destination and their assesment of the destination's competitiveness as good or bad has been the starting point of our study which consists of four chapter. In the first chapter perception management, in the second chapter destination competitiveness subjects have been examined theoretically reviewing the literature. In the third chapter research findings and in the fourth chapter conclusion and evaluations have been given. In the third chapter, a survey study has been conducted to determine the relationship between perception management and destination competitiveness. Since it is one of two cities that attracts maximum tourists in Turkey and facilitates many touristic activities which are particulary cultural and the artistic, questionnaires have been applied to foreign visitors in İstanbul. The data obtained from the closed-ended questionnaire was subjected to corelation analysis with SPSS. Additionally, the data obtained from the open-ended questionnaire has been transferred to findings chapter. According to findings; positive and significant relationships have been identified between the perception management and destination competitiveness. The findings obtained from the open-ended questions have revealed that when İstanbul is the case there are some negative perceptions which need to be corrected and competitive factors which need to be developed. Key Words: Perception, Perception Management, Destination, Competitiveness, Destination Competitiveness.