The impact of sensory perceptions on the image formation in faith tourism: A study on consumers of faith tourism

Five senses are important in people's perception and interpretation of the environment. Depending on the difference in perception, the interpretation of stimuli that comes to the five senses varies from person to person. The use of senses in tourism has revealed the concepts of sensory and experiential marketing. Sensory marketing, by making people's experiences memorable, combines with experiential marketing and transforms the subjective phenomenon of tourism into objectivity. It is a fact that sensory and experiential marketing, which is used to make the hotel guest's experiences unique, has a significant impact on the destination image. Understanding the effects of the senses and experiences on the formation of destination image also makes it necessary to understand the perception of the people who travel within the scope of faith tourism and the image perception that occurs for faith tourism destinations. In this research, 40 local visitors are investigated, who traveled to the House of Virgin Mary in Izmir/Selçuk and Kaaba in Saudi Arabia as a faith destination, to understand how they perceived these faith destinations with five senses and how the destination image formed with senses. The findings of in-depth interviews conducted with visitors, who travelled by faith and / or tourist motivation, are interpreted by descriptive analysis in accordance with qualitative research method and are compared with findings of extensive literature research. The findings show that the senses of sight, hearing and smell are at the forefront of the visitors' travel preferences and faith tourism destination perceptions. Visitors shaped image perceptions of the faith tourism destinations that are subject of this research, on the senses of sight, hearing and smell. It is observed that every phenomenon, experienced with five senses in the destination, does not adversely affect on the perception of the overall destination image, even if it is negative. Keywords: Five Senses, Experiential Marketing, Destination Image, Sensory Marketing, Faith Tourism Destination.