A Study on Perception of Event Tourism Image:Testing Influences of Travel Motivation and Familiarity-Taking Shanghai 2010 EXPO as an example

Tourism image has been commonly considered as a crucial factor in shaping destination image and affecting tourists' behaviors.However,there are only few researches applying the method of tourism image to event management,and even fewer ones on perception of events' tourism image.The purpose of this study is not only to examine the role of familiarity and travel motivation in event tourism decision-making process,but also the influences of cognitive and affective images on visit intention.Therefore,a method of Structural Equation Model is used to analyze event tourists' tourism decision-making process,from the aspect of Chongqing residents' perception of the tourism image of 2010 Shanghai EXPO.Moreover,how travel motivation and familiarity influence the process is also thoroughly discussed in the paper.A survey is conducted in Chongqing,Mainland China to examine Chongqing residents' perception of 2010 EXPO and the intention to visit 2010 EXPO.The results corroborate all the hypothesized relationships through Structural Equation Model.The results indicate that familiarity is positively associated with event tourism image and visit intention,and also confirm that event tourism image is positively related to visitation intentions.However,there is no significant evidence shown that travel motivation,event emotion image and visit intention are interrelated.Finding in this study will help to advance in understanding event tourism image and the interrelationships among familiarity,event tourism image and visit intention.