Urban Tourism Appeal: The Effectiveness of Communication Channels and Multimedia Formats in Creating Tourists’ Expectations

Abstract

Tourists’ expectations related to urban tourist destinations, which often derive from wider concept of destinations’ images, encompass a wide range of needs, desires and anticipations that tourists develop prior to visiting a particular destination. They are formed under the influence of different factors, one of which is traditional and digital communication channels. The objective of this research is to determine whether different communication channels and multimedia formats, used by tourists in the pre-travelling phase, could shape their expectations related to tangible and intangible characteristics of urban tourist destinations. The data gathering was conducted by applying Computer-Aided Web Interviewing (CAWI) on a representative sample of 312 adult citizens residing in Belgrade, the capital of the Republic of Serbia. The findings indicate that both traditional and digital communication channels, alongside personal recommendations used prior to the trip, significantly contribute to shaping respondents’ expectations concerning tangible characteristics of urban tourist destinations. Digital communication channels and personal recommendations appeared to be more important in shaping expectations related to the intangible characteristics of urban tourist destinations. Also, different formats of online media content exhibited positive associations with expectations concerning the tangible and intangible characteristics of urban tourist destinations. The obtained results provide recommendations for tourist organizations and local government entities, valuable for developing effective communication strategies for targeting potential tourists.