Empirical investigation of tourists' perceived psychic distance of Iran as a tourism destination

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to investigate the perceived psychic distance of potential<br />tourists in relation to Iran as a tourism destination. The concept of psychic distance refers<br />to perceived similarities/ differences between specific destination and tourist's home<br />country. The members of couch-surfing virtual community participated in this study. The<br />statistical data were collected by convenience sampling method. This study contributes to<br />the body of knowledge by identifying the dimensions of perceived psychic distance in<br />relation to Iran. The results of exploratory and confirmatory analysis indicated that these<br />dimensions include infrastructure, culture and legal distance. Furthermore, the result of<br />one sample t- test revealed that international tourists perceive high psychic distance in<br />relation to Iran as a tourism destination. In addition, the result of one-way variance<br />analysis showed that tourists from ten of the world's regions perceived different levels of<br />psychic distance in relation to Iran. Tourists from the Middle East region perceived less<br />psychic distance compared to other regions. These findings have several managerial<br />implications. First, development of Iranian tourism industry requires planning to reduce<br />perceived psychic distance in terms of infrastructure, culture and legal aspects. Second,<br />based on the lower psychic distance which is perceived by tourists from the Middle East,<br />the Iranian tourism policy-makers can consider the region as a more accessible target<br />market.