The mediating role of destination competition in its relationship on consumer experience of destination image: The case of Ordu city

The existing destination image, consumer experience and destination competition elements play an important role for tourism businesses and destination center managers who want to increase their market share from tourism and ensure sustainability in the long term, in the conditions of increasing competition with the dissappearance of geographical, economic and cultural borders as a result of globalization.The aim of this research is to reveal whether destination competition has a mediating role in the relationship between destination image and consumer experience in the tourism sector context of Ordu province.This study was conducted with the participation of domestic tourists staying or visiting the hotel areas that are open for external use in all hotels with tourism operation certificate operating in Ordu province. As a data collection method within the scope of the research, destination image (Byon and Zhang, 2010) , consumer experience (Kim et al., 2012) and destination competition (Meng, 2006) scale was used whose validity and reliability has been proven many times. Due to the coinciding period of the pandemic and travel restrictions applied,the research sample was carried out via the internet and telephone, over 387 domestic tourists, most of whom visited Ordu in the previous years.In the analysis of the obtained data, correlation, simple and mutiple regression analysis were used after validity and reliability tests. In the study, it has been determined that there is a positive relationship between destination image and consumer experience, destination image affects consumer experience positively, and destination competition has a partial mediation role in the relationship between destination image and consumer experience.