The perceived destination images by Swedish tourists with their visit on Cyprus

Sammanfattning: In 2016 Cyprus received 3,2 million international tourists. The island is considered as the 40th most popular destination in the world, while if counted per capita of local population Cyprus has a 6th place worldwide. There are some 200,000 tourists from Sweden travelling to the island annually. Swedish citizens, in a similar fashion with the rest of Nordic countries enjoy a similar consumer behavior and high purchasing power. Understanding how Swedish tourists perceive image of Cyprus helps to nuance the view of visitors coming from Nordic countries onto the destination. The visit experience plays an important role to reduce the destination image stereotyping, which caused by different information sources that may lead to a change in destination image after visitation. Positive destination image leads to satisfaction and revisit intentions. This thesis investigates in detail how Swedish’ tourists perceive the destination images during their visit on Cyprus. The researcher followed semi-structured qualitative research method with the use of in-depth interviews to collect empirical data with respondents who have visited Cyprus. Destination image theory is utilized to support the theoretical ground for the thesis, while a textual content analysis was used as a tool for analyzing the interviews. Adopting the qualitative research approach provided the opportunity to capture the holistic components of Cyprus destination images while Cyprus touristic’ attributes were identified and ranked based on their functionality and psychological dimensions. Conducting this research provided the researcher the chance to test the theoretical destination image formation and the interrelationship among the destination image different components. Cyprus images after visiting the destination differ from the pre-visit stage as images were modified after visiting the destination. Swedish tourists upon their visit perceived the images of Cyprus in positive and negative ways. Cyprus Tourism Organization can benefit Cyprus by considering the negative notions found in this research and try to solve these problems or minimize their effects as possible.