Abstract
The study was conducted with the purpose of exploring the image of Santorini, a small Greek island, held by international travellers before and after visit experiences. This research identifies an extensive theoretical framework around the concepts of Tourism, and more specifically, Island Destinations; Destination Image and; Travel Consumer Behaviour. These will serve as the foundation on which the current investigation can be built and the hypotheses developed. A sample of 106, international (non-Greek) tourists aged 18 and over, who had been on the island for at least two days at the time of the research, was investigated by a questionnaire survey. The statistical analysis of the responses generated by the questionnaires was done with the employment of SPSS software program and the use of several techniques, such as Frequencies, Cross-tabulations, Independent Samples t-tests and Paired Samples t-tests. The analysis provided data about the respondent’s demographics and psychographics, the factors influencing their destination choice, and finally the pre and after visit images the respondents held of Santorini. Overall, there was a higher response rate by female visitors; the majority of respondents fell under the two age groups of 25-44 and 45-64, were Americans and medium income earners, had received high levels of education, hold high working positions and traveled independently. Furthermore, the analysis identified that the respondents considered the several destination attributes given (local culture, cost of life and travel, e.t.c.) as fairly important to their finally destination choice. The perception of these factors was found to be affected mostly by respondents’ income, but also age and gender. Furthermore, the most popular sources of information as used by the entire group of respondents were found to be their friendly environment, travel guides and the Internet; however, age was found to influence the sources used. On the whole, the most popular activities, as answered, came out to be the island’s beaches, archaeological/historic sites and the visit to the volcano. Finally, the 5 Hypotheses that were tested for the purpose of this research indicated that the image held by tourists for the island before their visit was averagely positive, and became even more positive after their visit; and that the overall attitudes towards the island constituted of their expectations being met and satisfied. The respondents’ age and gender were not found to influence the perceptions and views created.