Academic–Practical Cooperation: A Case Study of Rural Destination Image

The paper makes a novel contribution to bridging the academic–practitioner divide in tourism studies, specifically in the context of the destination image. An advanced, robust estimation modeling approach that analyzed a lagged commercial international survey of potential tourists reveals that academics and practitioners tend to draw different conclusions from the same dataset based on their different hypotheses. These findings suggest that academics and practitioners have limited perspectives of destination image, casting doubt on the relevance of existing destination image models, particularly when applied to individuals who already hold a less-than-positive perception. Hence, this study suggests four steps for enhancing cooperation between academics and practitioners: the use of a mixed team, re-examination of commercial (lagged) datasets, developing a combined set of hypotheses, and conducting rigorous analysis. The findings advance both theoretical understanding and practical strategy by showing that cognitive marketing messages may reinforce existing views but rarely overturn them. To support the market, academics should focus on conative destination image, develop segmentation tools to identify the target groups based on their overall destination image, and build dynamic destination image models that portray the differences between the groups and conditions.