This study is based on the theoretical background of the consumer's buying process incorporating product awareness, familiarity, interest, and purchase. Using a sample of 750 U.S. households, a series of hypotheses were tested to analyze whether consumer aware ness and familiarity with Central Florida as a vacation destination had an impact on the consumer's destination image and on the interest and likelihood to visit it. The results indicate that those who were familiar with Central Florida (i.e., had previously visited it) had a more positive image of the destination and were more interested in and likely to revisit it than those who were only aware of the destination. However, contrary to our expectations, interest or likelihood to visit Central Florida was not significantly higher among those who were aware of Central Florida as a tourist destination than those who were not aware of it. For this case, it is possible to conclude that as consumers move from the awareness stage to the familiarity stage their interest and likelihood to visit increase, although the same may not be true when consumers move from the nonawareness to the awareness stage.

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Most impact of tourism studies have been restricted to economic analysis and benefits occurring to the area. Recently, concern has been aired on the existence of negative impacts. This article describes a study conducted during the summer of 1976 in an attempt to examine empirically the existence of these negative impacts of tourism. A total of 1,636 residents and 212 entrepreneurs of Cape Cod, Massa chusetts, were interviewed to measure their perception of how tourism impacts on different domains. An Attitude-Index was created by averaging the scores of each respondent. Comparisons were made between the respondents attitudes toward tourism and their dependence on tourism for a livelihood.

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Reviews and discusses the topic of customer satisfaction and its application to the hospitality and tourism industries. Defines the concept and analyzes its importance to services in general and to hospitality/tourism services in particular. Following a discussion on the dimensions and attributes of satisfaction, lists the main methods of measuring satisfaction and concludes with a review of global and cross‐cultural issues that affect satisfaction.

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This study analyzed the effects of the combined psychological characteristics of risk-taking and sensation seeking on the travel behavior and preferred tourist activities of young adults on leisure trips. The results of this cross-cultural study, which was conducted among 1,429 students at 11 universities located in 11 different countries, found that respondents with high combined risk-taking and sensation seeking (RSS) scores differed significantly in their travel behavior, mode of destination choice, preferred tourist activities and demographics, from those who had low RSS scores. The study also discovered a significant difference between nationalities on RSS scores.