How potential tourists react to mass media marketing: Advertising versus Publicity

The purpose of this research is to examine the persuasive effects of message presentation (i.e., advertising or publicity) on the effectiveness of marketing a tourist destination. This research attempts to test whether there is a difference between advertising and publicity on message acceptance and message response. Four dependent variables are studied: message strength, perceived credibility, attitude toward the destination, and purchase intent. Results of the study show that publicity created significantly higher mean scores than advertising for three of the four dependent variables tested. This study confirms that publicity is an important element in the tourism marketing mix. It also adds empirical evidence to Gartner’s (1993) typology of image change agents, supporting publicity’s effectiveness in developing the touristic image.