Influence of information resources and demographic factors on tourists' destination image: A case study in Istanbul

Tourism is an extremely important tool for the growth of a country's economy and the development of the country. Thanks to tourism, foreign currency inflows are provided to the country and hundreds of thousands of people are employed in the tourism sector. Tourism also contributes to the development of touristic cities and regions. Due to tourism, awareness of the protection of national, cultural and historical values is increasing. Along with the dynamism provided by tourism, cultural and social changes also take place. In order to reach all these benefits of tourism, it is necessary to attract tourists to the country. The tourist attraction of a country or area depends on the destination image of that place, along with a number of other factors. Destination image is related to the perception of a touristic area for a tourist and the tourist's impressions about that place. The destination image of the tourist has a critical importance as it is an effective factor for the tourist to revisit that place and recommend it to others. For this reason, in order for a touristic place to attract more tourists and to be able to visit that place again, the perception of the destination image about that place should be kept high. The aim of this research is to examine the destination image perceptions of tourists visiting Istanbul and to determine the factors affecting their destination image perceptions. In this context, the effects of destination image perceptions of tourists visiting Istanbul in terms of entertainment venues, travel environment, cultural experience, city life and free-living criteria on their satisfaction with visiting Istanbul, their intention to revisit Istanbul and recommending their visit to others have been researched. In the study, it was also investigated whether the destination image perception levels of the tourists visiting Istanbul in terms of entertainment venues, travel environment, cultural experience, city life and free life criteria differ according to demographic variables and the characteristics of the visit. The data of the research were collected from 448 foreign tourists who visited Istanbul by questionnaire method. The questionnaire used in the research consisted of three parts: Personal Information Form, Visit Evaluation Scale and Destination Image Scale. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to analyze the data collected with the questionnaire forms, and the internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach's Alpha) were calculated to test the reliability of the scales. Pearson product-moment correlation test was used for correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis was used for effect analysis. Independent sample t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test were used to analyze the differences between groups. Statistical significance was sought at the 95% confidence interval. The findings of the study indicate that the destination image factors that are evaluated at the highest level of foreign tourists visiting Istanbul are visual cultural experience (4,59) and city life (4,55), and that the destination image factors that are evaluated at the lowest level are LGBT and drug-oriented free life ( 2.72) and sea- related entertainment venues (3.77). In addition, it has been determined that the level of satisfaction of foreign tourists visiting Istanbul from visiting Istanbul, the level of recommending the visit to others and the level of revisit intention are very high. The findings showed that the level of life destination image factors, which are open-air entertainment venues, sea-related entertainment venues, macro-scale travel environment, micro-scale travel environment, visual cultural experience, culture learning experience, city life, adult-oriented free life and LGBT and drug-oriented freelance, did not have a significant effect on the level of visit satisfaction. Similarly, it has been determined that these nine factors do not have a significant effect on the level of foreign tourists visiting Istanbul to recommend Istanbul to others. On the other hand, these nine factors explain a significant 13% variance on foreign tourists visiting Istanbul and revisit Istanbul, and It has been found that within nine factors, sea-related entertainment venues, macro-scale travel environment, visual cultural experience and cultural learning experience destination image factors have a significant effect on the level of revisit intention. While the effect of the first three of these four factors that have a significant effect is positive, the effect of the culture learning experience destination image factors is negative. It has been concluded that the foreign tourists visiting Istanbul, recommending the visit to others does not affect the intention to visit Istanbul again, on the other hand, visit satisfaction positively affects the intention to visit Istanbul again. The findings of this study related to the difference analysis have been concluded that when the country of origin, gender, marital status, age, education level, income level, number of visits and duration of visit of foreign tourists visiting Istanbul differ, their perception levels also differ in terms of some factors that determine the destination image. Keywords: Tourism, Tourist, Destination Image, Visit Satisfaction, Intention to visit.