Examining the Relationships of Image and Attitude on Visit Intention to Korea among Tanzanian College Students : The Moderating Effect of Familiarity

The aim of this study was to investigate country image and attitudes on Tanzanian tourists’ intention to visit Korea. It also aimed to examine the moderating effects of destination and product familiarities in the relationship between country image and attitudes on future visit intention. We utilized data collected from 350 college students in Tanzania and found that participants’ cognitive image of Korea significantly influenced their affective image, in turn affecting attitudes toward country, products, and cuisine. Attitudes toward country, products, and cuisine, in turn, had positive effects on visit intention. We also showed the moderating effects of destination and product familiarities among the interrelationships.


Introduction
Country image is widely acknowledged as a powerful tool for national tourism operators seeking a competitive advantage in the global market.It influences tourist behavior, meaning that destinations with strong, positive images are much more likely to be taken into consideration and chosen in the travel-destination decision process.In the extremely competitive global tourism marketplace, consumer decisions are often swayed by the degree to which these images manage to convey destinations' unique characteristics [1].Destinations need to promote strong images to differentiate themselves from competitors, stress their competitive advantages, and gain traction with today's savvy travel customers [2].
Korea is a highly industrialized country which is often best known abroad for its automotive exports (Hyundai and Kia) and electronics manufacturing (Samsung and LG) [3].In terms of GDP contribution, tourism is today among Korea's most industries, and while Korea has attrated positive international attention through its state-of-the-art product associations, it has become a very well-known tourist destination among countries worldwide.Especially for its nearest neighbors-namely, China and Japan-Korea has become an increasingly popular extra-national destination, a surge driven in large part by the rising popularity of Korean culture abroad [3].The global visibility and awareness of Korean pop culture has also increased the international appetite for Korean cuisine [4].
In recent years Korean culture and media have even enjoyed growing in popularity much farther afield, including on the African continent (e.g., in Ghana and Tanzania).In fact, African countries must today be considered viable new markets for Korean pop culture, and potential new markets of inbound tourism to Korea.Korea still experiences inconsistent levels of inbound tourism, meaning it cannot afford to overlook valuable new tourist sources [3].Tanzania-a nation that has averaged between six and seven percent economic growth over the last decade-is one such potential inbound market.Outbound tourism from Tanzania has grown in accord with its rising economy: travel from the United Republic of Tanzania, which amounted to only $412 million (US) in 1996, rose to a remarkable $1.2 billion (US) over the next two decades, an annual growth rate of 6.54% [5].Thus, the nation of Tanzania was chosen as the specific study area for this investigation.To further narrow the research focus, this study takes note of a growing focus in the literature on travel and leisure spending by students [6].Researchers have recognized students as a unique and significant component of the tourist market because of their flexibility regarding time and particular access to disposable income [7].To date, it remains true that only a negligent amount of scholarship has examined touristic behavior among African students; hence, a study examining outbound tourism decision making by Tanzanian students stands to offer multiple rare and valuable insights.
At the same time, a better understanding of tourists' future visit intentions and their antecedents is an announced goal for ever more and more scholars [8].A strong nexus exists between country image (i.e., cognitive to affective) and attitude, with image a key determinant influencing tourist attitudes toward any given destination.When seeking to predict consumers' intentions, scholars have frequently noted the certain relevance of attitude.Because of the unique characteristics of the tourism industry (i.e., intangibility and inseparability), tourism-destination marketers often seek to increase potential tourists' familiarity with destinations in order to reduce their feelings of uncertainty and risk.The influence of individuals' familiarity with foreign destinations and products has been shown to be impactful in the process of choosing destinations.Consumers' preexisting awareness of a destination or its globally marketed products is central to their judgments and decision making about that locale [9].When tourists have prior knowledge of a destination, they form positive and/or negative associations with that place; these associations add up, ultimately, to a subjective but potentially strong assessment of destination attractiveness [10].Nonetheless, as scholars have noted, how familiarity affects destination-image and destination-loyalty remains under-addressed in the literature [11].
Hence, the first objective is to investigate Tanzanian students' perceptions of Korea.Specifically, the study investigates how image contributes to attitudes (toward country, products, and cuisine) and travel intentions.The second objective is to examine the moderating effects of destination familiarity and product familiarity on the interrelationship between attitudes, behavioral intentions, and both of the dimensions of destination images.

Cognitive Image and Affective Image
Consumers blend cognitive and affective elements (that is, elements of belief and feeling) to form an image.While cognitive and affective components are disparate and unique concepts, they do coordinate in significant ways.Cognitive image refers to "the individual's own knowledge and beliefs about the object," while "affective appraisals relate to an individual's feelings towards the object" [12] (p.658).For travel decisions, then, a basis of factual information results in affective images derived from a consumer's feelings about a destination and cognitive images are based on that consumer's beliefs about the destination-images that together add up to a subjective assessment of the destination's attributes [13].Affective image, after all, is a subjective, emotional response to cognitive knowledge regarding a tourist destination [14].Cognitive image is known to positively influence affective image even before any visit to the destination [15].

Attitude and Future Visit Intention
Attitude refers to the likelihood that a person will react with a particular response to a particular situation, so attitude has long been among the most important and fervently investigated points in consumer-behavior research.Attitude includes both attitudes toward physical objects (e.g., products) and attitudes toward particular behaviors-meaning a consumer's plan for future behavior can be termed a "behavioral intention" [16].When the behavior examined is travel behavior, a "visit intention"-representing a tourist's plan for future travel behavior-becomes cognizable.This intention to visit has been extensively studied in tourism research for its signal of customer loyalty.

Relationship between Image and Attitudes
Image has a great impact on consumer evaluations [17].Destination or country image is an essential antecedent that influences tourists' attitudes toward places they might visit [18].Brijs et al. [19] considered how image acts as an antecedents of product attitude, and Elliot et al. [20] reported that affective image was able to affect consumer attitudes.Jo Phillips et al. [21] found that affective country image positively affects attitudes toward national cuisine.

Attitude and Future Visit Intention
Few studies have examined the impact of the two dimensions of destination image on behavioral outcomes [22].Although some of these results point to direct linkages between destination image (cognitive and affective images) and behavioral intention [23], the mediating role of other factors such as attitude has often proved a more fruitful area for investigation [8].Researchers have shown that tourists' subjective country images colored their assessments of products from those nations [21], while tourists' attitudes drove their future touristic behavior.For instance, Jo Phillips et al. [21] found that diners with a positive attitude toward cuisine were more willing to visit Korea.

The Moderating Effect of Familiarity
Familiarity is the degree to which an individual perceives him-or herself to understand, in this context, a destination [24].A strong sense of familiarity is likely to undercut consumer's sense of risk associated with a locale, making the consumer feel more confident in the destination and its products [25].It can be an awareness of or set of perception about a destination-related product or service, even before or without any actual visit experience [26]: today's consumer can easily encounter tourism information prior to travel, creating familiarity before a trip is ever undertaken [27].A potential tourist may perceive a high degree of familiarity with a destination's attributes through education, media, experience, and personal contact [15].
More specifically, destination familiarity breaks down into the subjective mental perceptions of a destination or destination experience that a tourist hold, perceptions that can drive that tourist's intentions to visit [28].Previous studies [29] have stressed that destination familiarity influences tourists' decision-making processes.Destination familiarity is a key step in the creation of a destination image [30].
Across multifarious categories, product familiarity has been demonstrated to be highly impactful on consumer decision making [31].In the tourism sector, research has explicated potential tourists' tendency to use national products as bases for destination images of nations [32].In a clear case of summary-construct effect, tourists first divine country information from a country's products and then attribute associations and judgements about those products to the country itself [33].
Destination image are influenced by degrees of familiarity [34].Baloglu [30] found that the higher the familiarity with a destination, the more positive the perceptions of it, both in the cognitive and affective dimensions.Another study a decade later echoed that finding, showing that higher familiarity correlated with more positive destination images [35].Familiarity may moderate the relative influence of different kinds of antecedents on attitudes or images and on the influence of both image and attitude on a tourist's behavior [36].As national (or destination) information becomes more available to the tourist, the tourist develops stronger and more impactful attitudes toward that country's destination imagery; the end result of this process is more potent destination images that have greater power to influence tourist behavior [37].In this context, destination and product familiarity has a potential moderating role between country image, attitude, and intention to visit.

Research Model
Based on the literature review and the hypotheses detailed below, the conceptual model proposed and tested in the current study is presented in Figure 1.Hypothesis 9. (a-g) Product familiarity has a significant moderating impact on the relationships between study variables among potential college tourists.

Measurement Tools and Survey Questionnaire
All of the measures employed in this research were drawn from relevant literature.They were modified to fit the situation under consideration.All items were measured using a five-point Likert-type scale, anchored from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).Cognitive image with three items was adapted from relevant literature [38,39] (e.g., "South Korea has exotic cultural flavor.").
To measure affective image, we adapted three items from previous studies [12,40] (e.g., "South Korea is an interesting travel destination.").To measure destination familiarity, we adapted four items from prior studies [30,41] (e.g., "I am familiar with the lifestyle of people in South Korea.").To measure product familiarity, we adapted three items from prior research [38,42] (e.g., "Products from Korea are easy to find.").Attitude toward country was measured using three items adapted from [43] (e.g., "I think Koreans are reliable.").Attitude toward product was measured with four items used by prior investigators [44] (e.g., "Korean products have a good design.").For measuring attitude toward national cuisine, we used items such as: "All things considered, consuming Korean foods would be ___" followed by three measurement scales (Not enjoyable to Enjoyable; Unpleasant to Pleasant; Bad to Good).These scales ranged from 1 to 5 and were adopted from seminal research by [45].Finally, intention to visit was measured using likelihood, with scale anchors ranging from 1 (not at all likely) to 5 (very likely).Three items were based on the study of [43] (e.g., "I would like to visit South Korea in the near future.").
Before the main survey, a pretest was conducted to assess how well each scale captured the construct it was supposed to measure.Two professors from a hospitality-management faculty evaluated the questionnaire carefully to ensure content validity.Comments and suggestions were considered to refine the questionnaire.A pretest was conducted with five postgraduate students.Cronbach's alpha coefficients were all above 0.70, indicating the statistical reliability of each variable [46].

Data Collection Procedure
Data were collected in March 2017 from students at a university located in an urban area in Tanzania.The survey was administered offline as a pen-and-paper survey during one week.The data were all from undergraduate university students enrolled in business-related courses.An explanation of the survey and our research was provided to students during the class period.Students have been championed as a valid and dependable pool for survey participants as their across-group homogeneity tends to enhance internal validity by reducing error sources [47].

Exploratory Factor Analysis
Exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation was conducted to identify a priori dimensionality of cognitive destination image.The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test (0.672) and Bartlett's test of sphericity (368.138;p < 0.000) confirmed it was appropriate to assess the appropriateness of factor analysis.This five-factor solution accounted for approximately 71.7% of the total variance of the items.The Cronbach's alpha was 0.802.For affective destination image, the KMO statistic (0.736) and Bartlett's test of sphericity (587.793;p < 0.000) also confirmed factor analysis was appropriate.This one factor solution accounted for 81.4% of the total variance of the items.The Cronbach's alpha was 0.895.In terms of attitudes (toward country, products, and cuisine), the KMO statistic (0.851) and Bartlett's test of sphericity (2250.869;p < 0.000) confirmed the appropriateness of running factor analysis.The three-factor solution explained approximately 82% of the total variance of the items.From this procedure, one attitude-toward-products item was deleted.The Cronbach alpha of the five factors were robust, ranging from 0.825 to 0.935.This approach was used on all three items employed to identify the latent-factor structure of intention to visit.The KMO statistic (0.716) and Bartlett's test of sphericity (761.127;p < 0.000) confirmed it was appropriate to conduct factor analysis.This one-factor solution accounted for 84.2% of the total variance of the items.The Cronbach's alpha of the factor was 0.905.The results are shown in Table 1.

Profile of the Sample
Out of 350 survey respondents, a total of 182 participants were male students (52.0%) and 168 participants were female students (48.0%).About 35.0% of the respondents were juniors, 21.7% were seniors, 20.6% were freshmen, and 20.0% were sophomores.The respondents reported using TV, word of mouth, social-networking sites, and the Internet as their main tools when searching for tourism information.Lastly, 336 participants (96.0%) reported having no prior experience visiting South Korea.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to generate the measurement model.The goodness-of-fit statistics of the CFA revealed an adequate fit to the data (RMR = 0.050, RMSEA = 0.060, GFI = 0.921, NFI = 0.944, CFI = 0.968, IFI = 0.968) [48].Table 2 presents the details of the CFA results.All items were significantly loaded to their associated latent construct (p < 0.001).As shown in Table 2, the average variance extracted (AVE) of all constructs ranged from 0.595 to 0.827, which is higher than the 0.50 threshold.Thus, the convergent validity of the proposed measurement model was ensured [49].In addition, as shown in Table 3, these AVE values exceeded the square of correlations between variables.Hence, discriminant validity was evident [49].Composite reliability of the constructs (CCR) were higher than 0.70 and ranged from 0.809 to 0.916.The internal consistency of all constructs was thus ensured.

Moderating Effects
Tables 5 and 6, as well as Figures 3 and 4, indicate the results of the moderating effects of destination familiarity and product familiarity.When we compare the constrained and unconstrained models, performing a chi-square difference (∆chi-square), and examining the differences in degree of freedom (∆df), the moderating effect of familiarity becomes clear [50].We tested the path relationships that caused the statistical differences between two models.The coefficients were constrained and compared with the unconstrained model.The differences in the coefficients between constructs were indeed significant.However, the relationship between attitude toward country and intention to visit Korea did not differ significantly for the high and low groups (destination familiarity and product familiarity).Similarly, the link between attitude toward product and intention to visit Korea did not differ significantly for the high and low groups (destination familiarity and product familiarity).Thus, Hypotheses 8a-g and 9a-g were supported except for Hypotheses 8e,f and 9e,f.

Discussion
Hypothesis 1 posited that cognitive image was positively related to affective image.Some studies state that cognition may not always induce a positive affective image [20].In addition, some studies have employed frameworks that measured the two dimensions of destination image individually [51].As a result, there have been partly mixed results when researchers have tried to delineate the cognitive country image/affective country image relationship [52].However, in line with recent studies' prior conclusions, this study confirms the positive effect of cognitive image on affective image.
In fact, some recent work in the literature has cast doubt on the existence of an attitude/country image relationship [53].Lee and Lockshin [35] also studied the link between tourists' destination image on their attitude toward domestic products and found the linkage was not supported.Nevertheless, we here found that Hypotheses 2-4 were significant.Jo Phillips et al. [21] examined the effect of the country image of South Korea for U.S. consumers and found it to foster a positive attitude toward cuisine.In addition, for Hypotheses 5-7, we posited that attitudes (toward country, products, and cuisine) would significantly affect future visit intentions.In line with the findings of many studies, we also confirm that two dimensions of destination image affect consumers' attitudes and future behaviors: an individual's attitudes toward the object will be stronger and will have a higher influence on their perceptions and behaviors.
In terms of Hypotheses 8 and 9, the findings of this study regarding the moderating effect of familiarity partly confirmed the supposition that tourists respond to the relationships between country image, attitude, and behavioral intention differently according to their levels of familiarity, and thus the theoretical model can safely be applied to both the high-and low-familiarity groups.

Theoretical Implications
This study contributes theoretical and practical implications within the hospitality and tourism contexts, as a review of prior findings shows.Prior research has not assessed the relationship between familiarity and the two dimensions of destination image on both attitudes and intention to visit.
In spite of the enormous potential and unique characteristics of the African youth-tourism market, relatively little research has been conducted on the travel behavior and decision-making process of Africa's college-student travel market, including that of Tanzania.Thus, this study contributes to the closing of this gap by empirically exploring the moderating effects of familiarity through a research model that links tourists' two dimensions of destination image, attitude, and intention to visit, all in the context of young travelers.
The notion that tourists' cognitive country images positively influence their corresponding affective country images was supported by De Nisco et al. [54] However, earlier research by Elliot et al. [20] failed to find a relationship between these constructs.As a result, there remain partly mixed results in the literature concerning the hypothetical cognitive/affective country image relationship.More disturbingly, the effects of destination image on consumer attitudes and behavioral intentions remain all but unexamined [55].Some studies have emphasized the limitations inherent in explaining travelers' behavioral intentions [56]; such a limitation, however, would only make country image an even more critical factor for examination in travel decision-making studies [57].
In examining findings on the moderating effect of familiarity, we see that prior studies [20,58] have sometimes concluded that familiarity with a country's products and destination familiarity itself do not positively correlate with affective destination image.Yet to date, studies investigating the moderating role of familiarity on image and consumers' responses in tourism-destination research remain lacking [59].Thus, the current study enlarges the destination-image literature by responding to the suggestion of Josiassen et al. [60] that moderating variables be introduced into the destination-image model.
In addition, heretofore empirical research on this topic targeting the behavior of Millennials has been rather scarce.University students' travel behaviors and inclinations remain only sparsely investigated, which is a shame given the increasing significance of student tourism globally [61].Student-holiday behavior remains an economically and socially important trend in tourism, yet a largely unexamined one-a shortcoming this study squarely addresses [62].
This research contributes to fulfilling such gaps in the existing literature by examining familiarity and destination-image perceptions among its target group of young Tanzanian tourists rather than general tourists.Many tourism-related studies looking at African countries have linked communities and cultural tourism as important factors [63].In Korea-focal tourism studies, it has been common for research data to provide insights on one of only four nationalities (Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese and Singaporean), which has greatly limited representativeness.Juan et al. [64] stated that Korea should put more effort into attracting tourists from other countries and regions to diversify its inbound tourism market by developing and promoting various tourism attractions.Thus, a further importance of this study is its contribution to the scant research considering African markets as potential inbound sources.

Practical Implications
The economic and social impacts of tourism on inbound destinations are today at an all-time high, making them an absolute research necessity [65].As destination options proliferate in an expanding global tourism marketplace, destination operators are being forced to invest more money and effort into differentiating their offerings, intensifying their destination images abroad, and winning tourists' loyalty.In light of that fact, it is notable that in recent past years South Korea saw its appeal undercut because foreign tourists felt it lacked product diversity [66].That phenomenon led to a reduction in South Korea's competitive posture relative to neighboring destinations such as Japan and Hong Kong.When reaching out to potential tourists, this study suggests that Korean culture products such as music and performances, cultural and historic locales, the Korean language, and Korean industrial products are all important.In addition, food is often key to promoting a country as a destination successfully.Countries around the globe have successfully national cuisine to bolster their unique destination images in tourists' minds [67].
A destination is an intangible product, the understanding of which is often inseparable from a tourist's perception of the many products and events emanating from it.That ineffable mix can give rise to fears and perceptions of risk, but these negatives can be successfully countered by strong positive destination images [68].Destination marketers and operators should therefore focus on enhancing destination familiarity.As potential tourists encounter more and more elements (be they cultural or industrial products) of a destination's reality, they become ever more confident about visiting that destination and possibly attribute more positive association to it.Destination familiarity will pay off in increased inbound interest.
Capitalizing on destination familiarity means harnessing destination loyalty: it is axiomatic that tourists should be more willing to trust the familiar than risk the undiscovered.Destination managers must understand in detail how destination loyalty is formed and functions, first by extracting the factors that underpin destination loyalty [69].Doing so will create a lasting familiarity and enable sustainability of the destination over the long term [70].Loyalty operates over time to enrich a destination in a competitively advantageous way.This study has presented a revealing investigation of the antecedents of foreign travelers' behavioral intentions.These intentions signal the presence of loyalty, meaning these results lay out a map for destination marketers and operators to follow as they seek to catch and keep customers in the hospitality and tourism context.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
The following limitations of this study should be noted along with several avenues for future research that they suggest.The samples for this study were convenience samples, not chosen at random and not benefiting from a cross-sectional collection approach.The samples used in this research were college students in Tanzania, and while this group presented individuals who are undeniably relevant as young travelers, these respondents cannot represent the entire population of young travelers.Future studies may want to replicate the model proposed here and apply to other national entities as this study focused on only one destination, Korea, and only one inbound market, Tanzanians.Finally, researchers going forward need to consider more moderating (e.g., age) or mediating variables that could affect the aforementioned relationships.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Structural results for moderating role (destination familiarity).Note: The dotted line indicates not significant.The solid lines indicate significant.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Structural models for high-familiarity and low-familiarity groups (product familiarity).Note: The dotted line indicates not significant.The solid lines indicate significant.

Table 2 .
Confirmatory factor analysis: Items and loadings.

Table 4 .
Standardized parameter estimates for structural model.

Table 5 .
Moderating effect of destination familiarity.

Table 6 .
Moderating effect of product familiarity.