Destination familiarity has been analyzed for many years as an important factor influencing the perceived attractiveness of a destination and its image. However, previous research has concentrated on this relation considering familiarity with a destination as a whole, while the issue of familiarity with particular elements of a destination has not been explored. The current research aimed to detect if and how familiarity with three selected elements of a destination, namely, tangible tourism attractions, events, and traditional cuisine and dishes, impacts the perceived attractiveness of a city destination. The research was conducted using the following four Polish cities as examples: Gdańsk, Katowice, Łódź, and Wrocław. The research questionnaire was distributed among the citizens of another Polish city—Krakow. Over 200 responses were received. The results show that familiarity with tangible attraction was correlated with high perceived attractiveness of a destination, while the other two factors did not impact the level of perceived attractiveness. The results were achieved on the basis of the indication of several scientific and practical conclusions.
Cultural heritage and its various elements are an important factor that supports the development of tourism in destinations. One of the key factors of a successful destination is its positive image that allows it to effectively attract visitors. This paper investigates the impact of selected elements of material cultural heritage on the image of four Polish metropolitan destinations. The results indicate thathistorical and cultural heritage plays a more significantrole in creating an attractive image of a city than the city’s contemporary and post-industrial facilities. Cities perceived as historical areconsideredas much more attractive to spend free time in than cities predominantly associated with industrial functions. Moreover, the presented research results confirm a relationship between the familiarity of a destination and its positive image. These features have also been observed in previous studies.
Tourists’ decisions on selecting their destinations are driven by their imagination of available offers, rather than by the real offers. The special role of the image of tourism destination in the process of building a competitive position result, among other things, comes from the fact the image is a factor of competitiveness influenced by both intentional and accidental actions of entities, whom are active in a particular tourism destination as well as environmental elements, which are beyond the influence of these entities. The cities of the Upper Silesian Conurbation were for many years perceived as completely dominated by heavy industry. Nowadays, after significant changes in their economy and environment, local authorities are struggling to fight that negative perception. The aim of the paper is to examine if the negative image of the Conurbation is grounded by the textbooks for geography for secondary schools in Poland. The textbooks were studied using the content analysis as an example of important autonomous sources of information. Particular stress was put on analysis of the heading and pictures in the chapters on the Conurbation. The results prove that industrial image of the region is being grounded by the geography textbooks. It was discovered that the picture of Upper Silesian Conurbation that might be found in researched textbooks is almost identical with what was previously presented in the literature as tourists’ perception of the Conurbation. The results prove the role of the textbooks and the whole school education as factors shaping the image of particular places that people have also as adults. That role was neither researched nor clearly stated in the literature so far.
W artykule zaprezentowano postrzeganie miast konurbacji górnośląskiej przez studentów Turystyki i Rekreacji Uniwersytetu Pedagogicznego w Krakowie. Katowice oraz pozostałe miasta konurbacji zmieniają swoje oblicze odchodząc od rozwiniętych funkcji przemysłowych w stronę funkcji metropolitalnych, w tym turystycznej. Wyniki badań pokazują jednak, że te faktyczne zmiany, pomimo wysiłku promocyjnego poszczególnych urzędów miast i urzędu marszałkowskiego, nie przekładają się na poprawę wizerunku tych miast i zmianę stereotypowego ich postrzegania. Wyjątkiem są Katowice. Jest to miasto najbardziej znane respondentom spośród innych miast konurbacji. Dostrzegają w nim atrakcje turystyczne, krajoznawcze oraz możliwość atrakcyjnego spędzania czasu wolnego. Niewątpliwy wpływ na wizerunek tego miasta ma Katowicka Strefa Kultury o ponadregionalnym, a w wielu aspektach międzynarodowym oddziaływaniem.
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