ABSTRACT
Because tourism is an intangible product, and since there normally is a time lag between the purchase of this product and its actual consumption, travelers develop a cognitive image of the product they bought. Part III of this book demonstrates how this image is created, developed, and changed as the traveler moves from a decision-making stage to a traveler stage. It is suggested in this section that the changing image of a given destination and the evolving travel experiences can have a major effect on travelers' satisfaction levels. Today, tourism practitioners and destination managers have at their disposal a variety of research techniques that enable them to measure the gap between expected and actual travel experience. Thus, one can evaluate the extent to which the quality of a given tourist product meets customer expectations and from this find ways to constantly improve it.
