A Behavioural Economics Perspective on the Influence of Country Image on Tourist Decision-Making

Abstract

Behavioural economics is an emerging phenomenon within the tourism discourse, more-so within the African tourism context. The present paper hypothesises the influence of country image on the subjective contextualisation of tourism destination brand evaluations by tourists from a behavioural economics perspective. A quantitative-deductive exploratory study was conducted with a valid sample of n=233 inbound tourists to South Africa. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were employed to analyse the data. The results were intriguing, providing important insights on tourist behaviour within an African context, with the empirical evidence suggesting that South Africa’s perceived image as a country is based on both stereotypical and reverse Country-of-Origin effects. More significantly, the results indicate an intrinsic link between South Africa’s image as a country and the consideration of South Africa’s socio-cultural, competitive advantages, governance, tourism and marketing place brand dimensions. The findings of this study are novel and support the notion of the country image being a significant heuristic cue that influences the decision-making process of tourists. These findings are thus, of importance to both tourism practitioners and development economists in terms of modelling tourist behaviour in the consumption of African tourism ‘exports’.

Keywords: Behavioural Economics in Tourism, Country Image, Place Branding, Tourist Behaviour, South Africa

View PDF