PERCEIVED CHANGES IN

HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS
Philip L. Pearce
Department of Behavioral Sciences
James Cook University of North Queensland
Townsville. Australia

ABSTRACT
Small samples of tourists visiting Greece and Morocco
were studied intensively to see whether tourists’ post-
travel images of these countries were different from pre-
travel images. An adapted form of Kelly’s repertory grid
was used to assess the images. It was established that
both travelers to Morocco and to Greece changed their
images of the visited locations when compared to a control
group of non-travelers. In addition, the tourists’ country
of origin (Britain), and countries similar to the visited
destinations, were also seen somewhat differently after the
holiday. While these findings apply only to a limited num-
ber of tourists of a particular type, this kind of study paves
the way for more research on tourists’ attitudinal changes.
Keywords: perceptual changes, image, holiday destina-
tions, attitudes.

Philip Pearce is a lecturer in Psychology at James Cook University of North

Queensland. Educated at the University of Adelaide (B.A.-honours-and Dip. Ed.) and
the University of Oxford (D.Phill. his interests are in the application of social psy-
choloa to the phenomenon of tourism.

AnnalsofTourism Research.Val. 9.pp 145-164. 1982 0160-7383:82/020145~20503.00/0

Printed in the USA. All rights reserved. i 1982 J. J&WI and Per@mon Press Ltd

145
 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

La perception des changements des destinations de vac-

antes. Une etude approfondie a Cte entreprise concernant
un faible Cchantillon de touristes visitant la Grece et le
Maroc, dans le but d’etab!ir si les images “post-voyage” des
pays visit& differaien-t des images “pre-voyage”. Pour
Cvaluer ces images, on a utilise une forme adaptee du
repertoire de Kelly. On a pu Ctablir ainsi que les images
que les voyageurs au Maroc et en Grece conservaient des
localites visitees differaient de celles d’un groupe-controle
de non-voyageurs. De plus, apres les vacances, les tour-
istes avaient une vue differente de leur pays d’origine (la
Grande Bretagne) ainsi que des pays similaires aux des-
tinations visitees. Bien que ces constatations ne valent
que pour un nombre restreint de touristes d’un type par-
ticulier, ce genre d’etude ouvre neanmoins d’autres per-
spectives de recherches sur les changements d’attitude
des touristes.
Mots clis: changements perceptuels, images, destina-
tions de vacances, attitudes.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years a considerable literature has developed on people’s

images of foreign countries and distant locations. Typically, work
in this field has either used a mental mapping approach (Downs
and Stea 1977) or the multidimensional scaling technique (Anders-
sen 1973; Goodrich 1977, 1978). The former has a number of sub-
components or strategies for eliciting people’s views on foreign
locations. Of these, the two most frequently encountered are map
sketching of selected areas (Saarinen 1973; Whittaker 1972) and the
comparative ranking of areas for their relative desirability (Gould
1973, 1974). This work has had a considerable impact in environ-
mental perception research and its approaches have proved useful
in such diverse areas as migration research and locational analysis
(Bateman 1974; Gould 1974).
The multidimensional scaling technique has also been employed
widely. Here, respondents are asked to compare a set of countries
or areas and rate them for perceived similarity. Computer analysis
of the resulting similarity matrices produces a two or three dimen-
sional plot of the rated locations in which interpoint distance rep-
resents item similarity. Thus locations which are perceived as highly

146 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

similar cluster together while dissimilar locations are to be found

in separate parts of the computer-generated space. The technique
has proved attractive to tourism researchers because it offers the
possibility of comparing people’s perceptions of holiday destina-
tions. This in turn permits an analysis of the degree of image sep-
aration of destinations thus suggesting advertising strategies which
can be directed at product differentiation. A representative appli-
cation of multidimensional scaling can be found in the study of
Mediterranean resort areas by Anderssen and Colberg ( 1973).
However, there is a third methodology for assessing people’s im-
ages of foreign countries which warrants attention. This technique,
known as the repertory grid analysis, stems from the theoretical
work of George Kelly, a personality researcher. Kelly’s work has been
summarized adequately elsewhere (Bannister 197 1). It essentially
places emphasis on the individual’s idiosyncratic view of the world
when judging and interpreting stimuli. This emphasis has led to
the construction of a technique for assessing people’s views of places
(or other people) where the ratings of the subjects have been reliably
established as important and meaningful constructs (or perceptual
filters) for those individuals. Thus, the repertory grid technique has
a degree of theoretical input which is not present in the mapping
and multi-dimensional scaling work. In addition, a series of com-
puter programs to assess repertory grids has been devised which
incorporate the ability to assess people’s changes in perception over
time (Slater 1972, 1974). Clearly the facility to determine changes
of images is not present in the other two tasks outlined above.
This paper provides an example of the repertory grid technique
in assessing the changes in tourists’ images of foreign countries as
holiday destinations, following visits to those countries. In a general
sense, this study examines the familiar assertion that “travel broad-
ens the mind.” One of the implications of this cliche is that people
change their images and perceptions as a consequence of traveling.
This paper explores such an assertion by comparing tourists’ pre-
and post-travel images of two Mediterranean countries: Greece and
Morocco.
One further point should be mentioned. A familiar occurrence in
the field of human and animal learning is the “spread of effect”
phenomenon. Hilgard and Bower ( 19661, summarizing the work of
many researchers, have shown that the process of responding and
of learning to respond to a stimulus has a generalization or carryover
effect to similar or related stimuli. The present study explores the
generalization phenomenon with respect to the tourists’ attitudes
towards holiday environments. That is, it seeks to answer the ques-
tion of whether or not the experience of traveling to one specific

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 147

 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

destination (e.g., Greece) alters one’s attitude to other similar des-

tinations (e.g., Italy).
The concerns of the present study may be summarized as follows.
This paper illustrates and describes the use of repertory grid tech-
nique in assessing tourists’ perceptions of foreign countries as hol-
iday destinations. It explores a limited aspect of the hypothesis that
travel “broadens the mind” by investigating whether or not a small
sample of tourists when studied in detail do show attitudinal and
perceptual changes towards the country visited. It also tests the
hypothesis that there is a generalization effect in tourist’s attitudinal
changes. This proposal suggests that if attitudinal changes do occur
between the pre- and post-travel assessments of the visited country,
then smaller but similar changes can be expected to take place in
tourists’ attitudes towards similar holiday environments.

METHOD AND PROCEDURE

Subjects

Three groups of British subjects were used in the study. Two were
tourist groups: the third was a sample of control subjects. There
were 41 travelers to Morocco, 31 travelers to Greece, and 25 control
subjects. The destinations of Morocco and Greece were chosen for
study since two different destinations were needed to test the gen-
eralization hypothesis. These destinations were selected because at
the time of the study they were the most popular holiday choices for
Jet-Trek travelers and private parties using the same kind of bus/
camping facilities. This popularity provided the writer with better
access to subjects. Twenty-two travelers, 11 destined for Morocco
and 11 for Greece, were obtained from the bookings lists of the Jet-
Trek Company. The average was 22 years; range 19-25. This age
range is typical for the adventurous kind of Jet-Trek bus/camping
holidays. There were 12 males and ten females in the group. The
remaining travelers to each country were obtained from privately
organized parties using similar kinds of transport and travel ar-
rangements.
The control subjects, 12 males and 13 females, were obtained
from the private organizations. They were members of the same
groups who could not join these particular expeditions. They were
matched with the traveling groups for sex, social class, educational
level, and interest in travel. The age of the 25 controls and the 50
travelers from the private organizations was slightly less (18 years,
range 16-20) than that of the travel company groups. The overall

148 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

mean age of all the travelers was 19 years compared to 18 for the
control group.

Test Format

The technique administered to the 97 subjects consisted of a

seven by 13 grid. A rating scale accompanied the grid. Subjects were
asked to fill in the grid by rating seven elements (the countries) on
the 13 constructs (the judgmental criteria). The scale used was:

strongly disagree neither strongly agree

that the country agree nor that the
offers this disagree disagree agree country offers this
I I I I 1

The elements and constructs used in the grid are shown in

Table 1.
The choice of a common set of constructs in the repertory grid
needs some explanation. Many studies of foreign country images
select a set of descriptive terms at random and then ask the subjects
to compare the countries on these items. This approach is consid-
ered to be unacceptable to the repertory grid technique because the
theoretical orientation of Kelly’s work demands that the range of
stimuli or constructs presented to the subject must be meaningful
and representative of the entire semantic domain for the elements
to be judged. Several steps were taken to ensure that the constructs
used fulfilled these conditions. In order to understand the rationale
behind these procedures one needs to clarify what is meant by the
terms “range of convenience,” “cross-category,” and “within-cate-
gory” triads.
In Kelly’s technique, constructs are elicited from the subjects by
asking them to distinguish among three elements (a triad). They are
asked to specify how any two elements are similar to one another in
some important way and different from the third. The distinction
the subjects make is termed a construct and has two poles (e.g.
happy-sad). The range of convenience of a construct may be de-
fined as its applicability to elements. For example the construct
happy-sad does not apply to a stone and hence this element is out
of its range of convenience.
The triads presented to the subject can be of three forms. They
can be within-category triads (where the elements are very similar),
cross-category triads (where the elements are all quite different), and
mixed-category triads (where two elements are similar and the third
is somewhat different). It will be appreciated that very similar ele-

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 149

 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

ments often give rise to fine distinctions or constructs with a narrow

range of convenience. Cross-category triads and mixed category
triads on the other hand usually give rise to broad distinctions.
The present problem may be summarized as follows. At some stage
a group of travelers must be permitted to produce constructs to
ensure the familiarity of the labels. The subjects must be provided
with cross-category, mixed-category and within-category triads to
ensure the production of constructs with both a broad and narrow
range of convenience. Only in this way can one assume that a rea-
sonable sampling of the travelers’ constructs has been achieved. In
order to decide which elements should be grouped together to form
the similar, dissimilar, and mixed categories, a further pre-test com-
paring the elements is necessary. These steps, in their appropriate
logical order, were carried out in the present study.
Fourteen countries or holiday destinations, including the seven
which appear in the final grid (Table l), were presented on cards to
ten subjects. The subjects sorted these cards into three stacks, with
the elements in each stack having a certain similarity. From these
sorting patterns a cluster analysis was performed which grouped
the countries into three common clusters where each cluster was
different from the other two clusters. Twenty-seven triads (groupings
of three) of holiday environments were selected so that nine were

Table 1
The Construct Technique used in the Study of Holiday
Environments
I I I I I I I I

Cheap shopping
Adventurous holiday
Contact with local
peasant people
Exotic local customs
Interesting tourist
sights
Spectacular scenery
Appealing food
Swinging social life
Absence from other
tourists
Good sun and beaches
Good winter sports
Interesting politics
and society
Strong personal
attraction

150 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

mixed, nine were cross category, and nine were within category
groupings. These triads of elements were presented to ten different
subjects who either had taken or were planning Mediterranean hol-
idays, and they were asked to produce constructs for each triad in
accordance with the Kelly instructions. That is, they were asked how
two of these countries were similar to one another as holiday des-
tinations yet different from the third. Ten subjects sorting 27 triads
produced 270 constructs describing dimensions associated with
holiday environments. The 270 constructs were sorted by the writer
into 15 similar kinds of groups or content categories. Two content
categories were rejected for use with a tourist sample leaving thirteen
content categories. A specific construct was then devised which sum-
marized the meaning of that construct category. These 13 constructs
appear in the grid format in Table 1.
The choice of elements in the study was made as follows. Seven
holiday environments were selected by the writer. Two of these,
Greece and Morocco, represented the target countries, necessary for
an examination of the change hypothesis. The travelers’ country of
departure, Britain, was included since it has been suggested that
traveling abroad can affect one’s attitude to one’s home environment
(Useem and Useem, 1967). The remaining four holiday environ-
ments were selected in an attempt to test the generalization hy-
pothesis. This hypothesis demands that attitudes towards both dis-
similar and similar holiday environments be obtained since a
generalization of attitude change was predicted for similar environ-
ments but not for dissimilar ones. Specifically, the holiday environ-
ments of Iceland and Switzerland were selected as dissimilar envi-
ronments to those of Greece and Morocco. The generalization
hypothesis suggested that there would be little carry over in percep-
tion to these environments as a consequence of having visited Greece
or Morocco. The two environments selected as similar environments
to the target ones were Tunisia (as a similar environment to Morocco)
and Italy (for Greece).

The Timing and Administration of the Questionnaires

It has been suggested that the results of any study on intercultural

contact should be linked to the phrases of culture adjustment pro-
posed by Gullahorn and Gullahorn ( 1963). Consequently, in admin-
istering a questionnaire, one should systematically seek to obtain
responses from all subjects at the same time. Owing to some assis-
tance from the organizers of the various travel parties, it was possible
to test all groups exactly one week before their departure and one
week after their holiday. Thus, the timing was sufficiently removed

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 151

 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

from the holiday itself and the phases of inter-cultural adjustment

allowing the tourist to give a considered appraisal of his forthcoming
or his completed holiday. A file of political and world events was kept
during the course of the study to ensure that any changes in tourists’
perceptions were due to the holiday rather than international hos-
tilities. No events occurred which directly impinged on the study.

RESULTS

The Sensitization Problem

It was anticipated that the tourists in their pre-travel responses

might give ceiling scores for the country they were about to visit,
thus preventing investigation of any further positive changes. This
was examined in the following manner. The number of maximum
or ceiling scores given by each subject to the country he was about
to visit was recorded. The mean target ceiling score was calculated
by dividing the total number of ceiling scores for the target environ-
ment by the total number of travelers (there were 72 subjects, 41 of
whom were travelers to Morocco while 31 were travelers to Greece).
Ceiling scores for all other locations apart from the holiday environ-
ment being visited were also obtained. The mean “other environ-
ments” ceiling score was calculated by dividing the total number of
these scores by the number of travelers (n = 721 and also by the
number of other environments (n = 6). The mean “other environ-
ments” ceiling score and the mean target environment ceiling score
were compared using student’s test for related samples (t = 2.54,
p= .Ol ).These results suggested that the sensitization problem did
exist. That is, tourists gave more ceiling or maximum scores when
judging the country they were about to visit than they did for other
holiday environments. It is, however, reassuring to note that the
mean number of ceiling scores is only 2.50 with a standard deviation
of 1.53. This implies that there is still considerable room for further
positive change in the tourists’ perceptions; it will be recalled that
there are 13 constructs in all. This scope for further change would
not of course have been possible if the mean number of ceiling scores
had been eight or nine or higher. Accordingly, one can suggest that
although there were some sensitization effects in the tourists’ per-
ceptions, such effects were not problematic.

The Results for the Change and the Generalization Hypothesis

Group changes in the travelers’ perceptions of the holiday envi-

ronments were analyzed by taking the consensus grids for the post-

152 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

travel responses from the consensus grids for the pre-travel re-
sponses. This involved the use of the Delta program (Slater 19721,
which computes the major components of the resulting difference
grid. These details will be considered presently. The Delta analysis
also provided a measure of the general degree of correlation between
the pre- and post-travel grids. This provided a useful overview of the
results. The general degree of correlation between the control con-
sensus grids, which was .944, can be seen as a measure of test
variability, while the correlation between the consensus grids for the
travelers to Greece (.832), and for the travelers to Morocco t.8871,
can be interpreted as measures of both test variability and the effects
of travel. From these figures it was apparent not only that the extent
of the change was greatest for the Greek travelers but also that the
Moroccan travelers showed more change than did the control group.
These results suggested that in general the travel experiences had
an effect on the perceptions of the travelers, notwithstanding the
slight limitations on change imposed by the sensitization effect,
since the degree of change for these groups was greater than that
due to test retest considerations or other effects as measured by the
control group.
The essential information from the Delta grids presented in Table
2 includes: (a) The percentage of variance accounted for by the main
components of change for each of the three travel groups, together
with the loadings of constructs and elements on the first three com-
ponents, and (b) a plot of the first two components of change for

Table 2
The Percentage of Variance Accounted for by the Main
Components of the Pre - Post Travel Difference Grid for the
Travelers to Greece

Component* Root’ As Per Cent

1 7.50 71.84
2 2.02 19.40
3 0.48 4.60
4 0.27 2.63
5 0.14 1.35
6 0.02 0.18

I For the non-technical reader these two terms may be unfamiliar. The 6 components
may be conveniently conceived as six independent underlying general forces or di-
rections summarizing the nature of the perceptual changes. The root is a measure
of the relative power of these forces. It is a summed and squared product of item
loadings on the component. Components with roots having value greater than 1 are
usually considered to be important.

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 153

 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

each of the three travel groups. The latter illustrates much of the
information contained in Figure 1 in a diagrammatic form. It would
be emphasized that the details reported here represent the main
&@erences between the pre- and post-travel grids. Following the
conventions outlined by Slater (1972, 19741, the constructs are rep-
resented as direction lines in the construct space. The distance of

Table 3
The Loadings of the Elements and Constructs on the
First Three Components of the Change Grid for the
Travelers to Greece

ELEMENTS Component I Component II Component III

Loading Loading Loading
Britain - 1.83 -0.89 -0.05
Greece 1.43 -0.29 -0.47
Morocco -0.25 0.43 0.06
Italy 1.30 -0.57 0.35
Iceland -0.11 0.53 0.16
Switzerland -0.60 0.55 -0.26
Tunisia 0.05 0.24 0.20

CONSTRUCTS
Cheap shopping 1.17 -0.05 0.19
Adventurous 1.61 0.45 -0.22
holiday
Contact with local 0.50 -0.33 0.00
peasant people
Exotic local 0.74 -0.34 -0.16
customs
Interesting tourist 0.34 -0.29 0.35
sights
Spectacular 0.51 -0.29 0.10
scenery
Appealing food -0.95 -0.58 -0.22
Swinging social life -0.49 -0.08 0.15
Absence from other 0.95 -0.12 -0.15
tourists
Good sun and 0.30 -0.02 0.14
beaches
Good winter sports -0.12 0.00 -0.32
Interesting 0.47 -0.48 0.06
politics and so-
ciety
Strong personal 0.26 -0.92 -0.07
attraction

154 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

Figure 1.
The Loadings of the Elements in Construct Space on the Two Major Com-
ponents of the Delta (Post-Travel minus Pre-Travel) Grid for the Travelers
to Greece.
6 4 10 9 3

\ \ \
Greece 0
I II I I
Italy0
\
\

. Tunisia

. Iceland

l Morocco

*Switzerland

\ 11

,
7
l Britain

I
LEGENDFORCONSTRUCTS 7 Appealing Food
1 Cheap Shopping 8 Swinging Social Life
2 Adventurous Holiday 9 Absence from Other Tourists
3 Peasant People 10 Good Sun/Beaches
4 Exotic Local Customs 11 Good Winter Sports
5 Interesting Tourist Sights 12 Interesting Politics/Society
6 Spectacular Scenery 13 Strong Personal Attraction

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 155

 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

the elements from the origin may be taken as the change effect due
to traveling plus the changes due to noise effects in the testing
material. The relative insignificance of these noise effects is dem-
onstrated in a later figure by examining the changes for the control
subjects.
The point to note in Table 2, Table 3, and Figure 1 is that two
components of change accounted for a very substantial proportion
of the variance (over 90%), and that the elements which changed
most were Italy, Greece, and Britain. Following the travelers’ holidays
to Greece, Greece and Italy were perceived as more adventurous hol-
iday destinations. They were also viewed as having cheaper shop-
ping, fewer tourists, more exotic customs, more peasant people, and
more spectacular scenery. Britain, on the other hand, was seen at
the other end of this dimension: that is, less adventurous and more
expensive. However, the tourists did come to see their own country
as having more appealing food and of being somewhat better for
social life than they did prior to their holiday experiences.
The Delta printout, which summarizes the changes in any ele-
ment as a percentage of the total grid change, highlighted the sig-
nificance of the three elements discussed above. The results were
Britain, 39.58%; Greece, 22.58%; Italy, 21.02%; Switzerland, 7.72%;
Iceland, 3.60%; Morocco, 3.34%; and Tunisia, 2.16%. The relevance
of all these results to the change and generalization hypotheses was
as follows. Change certainly did occur with respect to the target
element (Greece) and this change also generalized to other elements
(e.g., Britain and Italy).
Similar changes in the perceptions of the travelers to Morocco are
presented in Tables 4, 5, and Figure 2.
Tables 4,5, and Figure 2, show that the two components of change
accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance (nearly 70%)

Table 4
The Percentage of Variance Accounted for by the Main
Components of the (Pre-Post Travel) Difference Grid for the
Travelers to Morocco

Component Root As Per Cent

1 1.57 42.91
2 0.93 25.48
3 0.66 17.93
4 0.30 8.31
5 0.15 4.16
6 0.04 1.21

156 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

Table 5
The Loadings of the Elements and Constructs on the First Three
Components of the Change Grid for the Travelers to Morocco

ELEMENTS Component I Component II Component III

Loading Loading Loading
Britain -0.27 -0.76 -0.31
Greece -0.44 0.28 -0.29
Morocco 0.91 0.08 -0.28
Italy -0.39 0.44 - 0.06
Iceland -0.07 -0.25 0.57
Switzerland -0.25 0.15 0.18
Tunisia 0.51 0.06 0.20

CONSTRUCTS
Cheap shopping 0.44 - 0.03 0.12
Adventurous holiday 0.52 -0.03 -0.14
Contact with local 0.64 -0.36 0.07
peasant people
Exotic local customs 0.13 -0.13 -0.11
Interesting tourist 0.48 -0.13 -0.40
sights
Spectacular scenery 0.38 0.14 0.32
Appealing food -0.39 -0.76 0.25
Swinging social life -0.18 -0.02 -0.21
Absence from other 0.02 -0.03 0.20
tourists
Good sun and beaches -0.08 -0.29 -0.30
Good winter sports 0.27 0.32
Interesting politics 0.21 -0.05 0.04
and society
Strong personal 0.08 -0.29 -0.08
attraction

and that the elements which changed most were Morocco, Britain,
and Tunisia, Following the travelers’ holidays to Morocco, Morocco
and Tunisia were seen as having more peasants, being more adven-
turous holiday environments, having cheaper shopping, more tour-
ist sights and more spectacular scenery. Britain, Greece, and Italy
were viewed as lacking these attributes but Britain was perceived
by the returning tourists as having more appealing food. The infor-
mation provided by the Delta printout, summarizing the changes
in any element as a percentage of the total grid change, again pro-
vided important information. The results were, Morocco, 26.65%:

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 157

 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

Figure 2.
The Loadings of the Elements in Construct Space on the Two Major Com-
ponents of the Delta [Post-Travel minus Pre-Travel) Grid for the Travelers
to Morocco

l Morocco

l Tunisia

-
.I1 II

Iceland l

Britain l . Switzerland

. Italy

l Greece

8
LEGEND FOR CONSTRUCTS 7 Appealing Food
1 Cheap Shopping 8 Swinging Social Life
2 Adventurous Holiday 9 Absence from other Tourists
3 Peasant People 10 Good Sun/Beaches
4 Exotic Local Customs 11 Good Winter Sports
5 Interesting Tourist Sights 12 Interesting Politics/Society
6 Spectacular Scenery 13 Strong Personal Attraction

158 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

Table 6
The Percentage of Variance Accounted for by the Main
Components of the (Pre-Post Travel) Difference Grid for the
Non-Traveling Control Group

Component Root As Per Cent

1 1.39 43.42
2 0.76 23.82
3 0.47 14.94
4 0.26 8.33
5 0.17 5.36
6 0.13 4.13

Britain, 20.51%; Tunisia, 13.4%; Iceland, 12.27%: Greece, 11.82%;

Italy, 10.78%; Switzerland, 4.56%.
Information concerning the control group of travelers will now be
outlined. This material helps us to understand the ‘noise” in the
data for the two travel groups. To demonstrate the relative insig-
nificance of these noise effects, the same information as that pre-
sented for the travel groups-namely the percentage of the variance
accounted for by the components, the component loadings and a
plot of the first two components-will be outlined and compared
with the results for the travel groups. The material is presented in
Tables 6, 7, and Figure 3.
An important factor which should be noted when interpreting the
results of Table 6, Table 7, and Figure 3, is that in this instance,
unlike the preceding two occasions, the Delta grid represents the
difference between two consensus grids which are highly intercor-
related (.944). That is, we are dealing with smaller absolute changes
than on the previous two occasions. Hence any changes in elements
and constructs for this Delta grid are of less significance than for
the travel groups.
The two components represented in Figure 3 comprised 67% of
the variance. However the control subjects, after their “non-travel”
month in Britain, saw Greece and Italy as having more sun and
beaches than before and also having more appealing food. It is par-
ticularly noteworthy that Britain, one of the major elements to
change for the travel groups, underwent almost no change what-
soever for the control group. The other changes can be interpreted
as a fairly random scattering of elements and constructs. Most im-
portantly the pattern of loadings on the components, including the
example above, did not parallel the pattern for either of the travel
groups.

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 159

 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

Table 7
The Loadings of the Elements and Constructs on the First Three
Components of the Change Grid for the Non-Traveling Control
Group

ELEMENTS Component I Component 11 Component III

Loading Loading Loading

Britain -0.01 -0.04 0.16

Greece -0.54 0.13 -0.31
Morocco -0.16 0.37 -0.12
Italy -0.60 -0.16 0.16
Iceland 0.64 -0.25 -0.42
Switzerland 0.12 -0.53 0.24
Tunisia 0.54 0.48 0.28

CONSTRUCTS
Cheap shopping 0.18 0.18 0.11
Adventurous holiday -0.48 -0.44 0.02
Contact with local -0.22 0.28 0.27
peasant people
Exotic local customs 0.18 -0.08 0.04
Interesting tourist 0.18 -0.36 0.24
sights
Spectacular scenery 0.10 -0.16 0.26
Appealing food -0.51 -0.15 0.19
Swinging social life 0.35 0.22 0.17
Absence from other 0.19 0.09 -0.28
tourists
Good sun and beaches -0.65 0.38 -0.04
Good winter sports -0.20 0.26 0.07
Interesting politics 0.10 -0.01 -0.05
and society
Strong personal 0.36 0.08 0.34
attraction

The Delta printout provided the following details concerning the

changes for each element as a percentage of the total grid change:
Iceland, 21.04%; Tunisia, 20.24%; Italy, 15.78%; Greece, 14.49%;
Switzerland, 12.73%; Morocco, 9.42%; and Britain, 6.30%. Again
the kinds of changes seen here were unrelated to those of the two
travel groups both in terms of the elements which changed and the
gradients of the amount of change. This justifies the assertion that
the effects reported for the other two groups were due to traveling
and not test variability or changes resulting from intervening inter-
national events.

160 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

Figure 3.
The Loadings of Elements in Construct Space on the Two Major Com-
ponents of the Delta (Post-Travel minus Pre-Travel) Grid for the Control
Subjects
13 9 12

I
I / /

Iceland l
l Tunisia

_
Switzerland 8

II
Britain '
l Florocco

0 Greece
0 Italy

-I \
10

LEGENDFORCONSTRUCTS 7 Appealing Food

Cheap Shopping
Adventurous Holiday
Peasant People
Exotic Local Customs
Interesting Tourist Sights
Spectacular Scenery
8 Swinging Social Life
9 Absence from Other Tourists
10 Good Sun/Beaches
11 Good Winter Sports
12 Interesting Politics/Society
13 Strong Personal Attraction

DISCUSSION
The results obtained in the preceding section support the change
hypothesis, one of the two main hypotheses of this study. In par-

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 161

 PERCEIVED CHANGES IN HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

titular it was shown that two tourist groups, one visiting Greece,
the other visiting Morocco, changed some of their perceptions of
these countries as holiday environments. The travelers to Greece
saw that holiday environment as more adventurous, better for cheap
shopping and freer from other tourists than they did prior to their
travels. The travelers to Morocco saw that country as more adven-
turous, better for cheap shopping, having more interesting tourist
sights, and bringing them into contact with more peasant people
than prior to their holiday. Both sets of results support the general
form of the change hypothesis. It seems that specific tourist groups
can change their perceptions of the visited country as a consequence
of traveling.
Interestingly, the positive change for the travelers to Greece was
greater than that for the Moroccan bound travelers. This can be seen
by comparing the intercorrelations of the consensus grids (it was
lower for the travelers to Greece); the percentage of variance ac-
counted for by the first component (it was much higher for the
travelers to Greece); and the loadings of the elements on that com-
ponent, mostly higher for the travelers to Greece. See Figures 1 and
2 and Tables 3 and 5 for details.
The evidence relating to the generalization hypothesis allows us
to support the broad outline of the hypothesis. More specifically, for
travelers to Greece, it was shown that generalization, which was
defined as a spread of change in perception from the target envi-
ronment to similar environments, did occur (see Figure 1 and as-
sociated comments). The greatest changes occurred for the environ-
ments of Britain and Italy.
It appears that the perception of one’s home environment may be
significantly altered by an overseas holiday. However this change in
the perception of the home environment seems to be independent
of any similarity between the home and the visited environment.
That is, the present results do not support a simple generalization
model where perceived changes in countries follow the similarity
between the visited environment and other destinations. Indeed, the
tourists’ perception of the home environment may exhibit greater
change than the visited environment. This is the case in the present
study of the travelers to Greece where the changes in the element
Britain accounted for 34% of the total changes in the grid, while
changes in the perception of Greece accounted for only 22% of the
total change. There seems to be an important anchor or contrast
effect with regard to the home environment, which warrants further
investigation (Helson 1948).
For the travelers to Morocco it was again shown that generaliza-
tion occurred. It was predicted that the greatest change would occur

162 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 PHILIP L. PEARCE

with respect to Tunisia. But, the greatest change occurred respec-

tively with Britain, Tunisia and Iceland. Again, the importance of
the home country is underlined. The changes in Tunisia were in
agreement with the selection by the writer of that environment as
a similar location to Morocco. The reported change with respect to
Iceland follow the directions of changes reported for Britain. This
appears to indicate that tourists’ images of places are closely linked
in a complex pattern of interdependencies and that post-travel shifts
in the perception of the home environment may be associated with
weaker parallel shifts in the images of other tangentially linked coun-
tries. In the present case the lack of sun and good beaches in both
Britain and Iceland (construct 10 in Figure 2) appears to be the
major underlying link accounting for the changed post-travel images
in both countries.
In conclusion, one can suggest that tourists may change their
perception of the holiday environment they visit. Furthermore, the
perceptual changes which occur may not be limited to the visited
locality but may reflect back on one’s home country and on occasions
to other holiday environments which are generally recognized as
similar to that recently visited. Occasionally, countries with some
important similarity to the home environment may also be involved
in the web of ensuing perceptual changes.
Finally, this article has illustrated the application of the Kelly grid
technique to certain tourists’ views of holiday locations. Clearly the
present study uses a very select sample of tourists and the image
changes of other styles and groups of tourists may bear little relation
to the present findings. However, this study indicates that the time
has come in tourism research to replace speculation about the con-
tent of tourists’ minds by skilful measurement and testing of atti-
tudinal changes. •Iq

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Submitted 10 January 1980

Revised version submitted 10 March 1980
Second version submitted 30 September 1980
Accepted 20 November 1980
Refereed anonymously

164 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH