Signature Case Dubai: Perceived Image Research

As a consequence of the unsatisfactory findings of the traditional approach to measuring perceived place image, as shown in Chapter 12, we have developed an alternative methodology (Govers et al. 2007a, 2007b), which will be presented in this chapter. In earlier chapters, arguments were put forward for the formulation of a qualitative phenomenographic approach, built on the premise of the narrative mode of thought of consumers and their ways of perceiving, retaining and interpreting hedonic consumption experiences. Free elicitation of descriptive adjectives for place image assessment has been contended by Reilly (1990). It was assumed that, if this was done with the co-operation of major online travel agents and/or place marketing websites that have large numbers of unique visitors, sufficient data could be assembled to quantify these unstructured data, using computerized content analysis (Weber 1990) through artificial neural network analysis software (Woelfel 1998; Woelfel and Stoyanoff 1993). With the growth of the internet, breakthrough opportunities were and are provided for place image research, removing resource, time and practical research restrictions that prevented such large-scale unstructured approaches in the past.