Measurement of Destination Personality: An Updated Literature Review

Vol. 12, No. 1, 2022, Pg. 2631 2656 Abstract Destination branding has been an extensively investigated idea as governments and corporations seek to reposition their respective destinations' images in the mainstream sphere. Many areas of destination branding are researched; not only for the purpose of branding or rebranding locations, but also to stimulate local economies. The purpose of this study is to obtain information about destination personality from the literature accessible in research sources. Based on the citation indices and downloads from digital sites and libraries, this research picked 28 noteworthy papers on the issue that were published in the recent 12 years, and then conducted the analysis on them. This review paper presents the findings of previous researches and the approaches used therein. The findings reveals that 42-item BPS of (Aaker, 1997) were used to measure destination personality. However, the most noticeable dimensions of destination personality based on which human characteristics are attributed to the destination are sincerity, excitement and conviviality and researchers used these dimensions are most commonly to measure destination personality. These noticeable dimensions of destination personality sincerity and excitement were found to be two main dimensions and conviviality is newly specific to destination. Researchers, marketers, and government officials might benefit from an increased understanding of notions of destination personality and its implications in tourism, which could lead to adjustments and improvements in the branding of tourist, business, and other kinds of destinations. Hence, it is essential to emphasise that this paper is only a qualitative evaluation of the literature and therefore confined to the results of prior research in this area.


Introduction
Destination personality consider as brand personality in context of tourism literature. Though, the study of product/brand personality research had begun in the early 1960s in the domain of consumer goods . Conceivably, the identification and application of destination personality concept is quite new in tourism field Gnoth et al., 2007;Pitt et al., 2007;Tasci & Kozak, 2006). Destination personality contributes to encouraging tourists and in the marketing of destinations (Baloglu et al., 2014;Usakli & Baloglu, 2011). According to Chen and Phou (2013) destination personality has been widely used by marketers to competitively position their cities in the tourism market. This study aims to contextualise prior research results in terms of destination personality. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of destination personality studies from 2006-2018. Table 2 showed the updated literature review on destination personality presented in earlier studies, as well as the research gaps for future research. The purpose of this study is to create a better knowledge of the destination personality on the basis of the most recent findings, as well as to identify methodological concerns and the value of new information for future research in the destination. Particularly, this paper offers a review and debate of the literature, concept, measurement and dimensions of destination personality. Additionally, the methodological methods for establishing destination personality are examined in an attempt to assist researchers in recording and determining the evolution of destination personality through years. The scope of the most recent review was limited to the following issues: • What are the latest findings of destination personality research? • What are the dimensions of the personality image? • How to measure destination personality in tourism related studies?

Conceptualization of Personality
The word personality said to be derived from the Latin word "persona" which used in contras of "mask" meaning. "Persona" reflects the characteristics of an individual in any specific role rather than the original person behind the mask. Over time, this concept comprehends with person attitude and behavioural characteristics (Aslan, 2008). Similarly, it is very common to listen about people is that person has a good or bad personality. The actions are the reflection of the personality and it also defines it. Different behaviour distinguishes the uniqueness of every personality. Personality of an individual is the composition of mental characteristics; thought patterns and sentiments all this stimulates one to behave in a certain way. Personality is "The characteristics or blend of characteristics that make a person unique." Basically, temperaments or emotional tone also expressed the Personality. It is commonly Stemmler and Wacker (2010) said in personality psychology field that "Some things change; Some things stay the same. suggested that "personality is a dynamic organization, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that create the person's characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours." In accordance with Mischel and Shoda (1995) demonstrated that personality gives the directions and coherence to an individual's life with the dynamic organization of cognitions, affects and behaviours. Nature (genes) and nature experiences contains both personality structures and processes. Likewise, an individual personality also depicts its values, beliefs, and expectations (Washington et al., 2006). Correspondingly, Personality development contains many potential factors. Following this an individual's personality acquire values, beliefs and expectations from surrounding environment, socialization and with unique experiences which also enhance the self-concept/self-esteem/self-regulation/selfefficacy/self-awarness and self-knowledge in personality (Ward, 1974). The distinctive pattern of behaviours, continuities, permanence of personality traits and dispositions over time defines personality development (Denissen & Penke, 2008).

Types of personality
The individual behavioural differences personality traits such as Introversion/Extroversion (I/E) are always comprehensively explained by personality theorists in terms to used and understand them accordingly. Previous studies indicate that there is always a high emphasize on introversion-extroversion as the main traits of big-five personality model. As well as Burruss and Kaenzig (1999) cited that Jung (1923) was the pioneer for the exploration of personality and development of its construct's extroversion and introversion. Jung observed the human behaviour and habits as patterns and worked to recognize and rationalize these differences of personality according to uniqueness of human behaviour variable patterns. In early twentieth century, the concept of these two personality traits introvert/extravert were already existed, Eysenck (1992) research had confirmed that introvert/extravert factors were very important dimensions of personality. Each dimension has its own characteristics, such as sociality, activity, expansiveness, etc.

Introversion
Morrone-Strupinsky and Lane (2007) defined introverts as self-oriented, self-responsible, persistent and intrinsically motivated towards their acts and results. According to studies, Introversion does not prefer vast social life they are more intended towards rich inner life. Introverts are quiet, simple, prefer focused and closed relationship with small no of people (Niranga & Dharmadasa, 2018). They are very anxious in nature but good in thinking while they are tranquil and follow internal directions preferably. In invasion situation they isolate their self as they couldn't manage to be themselves and strive to be extroverted, spontaneous or crazy. They are very inside-in regarding their best things, and not actively participate or reluctant in a group situation just because they need time to fully develop their ideas and they think before speak. They have the skill to be appeared as extroverts when needed. Seemingly they appeared as anti-social or shy but they are social but in a different way. They have a good capacity to listen, planning, focusing, oneon-one interactions and can perform independently (Dannar, 2016). Interestingly they like to express themselves by writing, have ability to hold their self-back in any situation, be calm and get perspective. Thus, introverts are cooperative and facilitating in relationships. Introvert & extrovert personality traits chart shown in Figure 1.

Big-five Personality Traits
Initially the 16-item inventory of personality traits were developed by Raymond Cattel in 1964 with Sixteen personality factor questionnaire (16PF) items to analyse these traits. Costa Jr and McCrae (1992) later established the FFM (Five Factor Model), which precisely describes the personality to measure in terms of five broad factors. Among all the developed models for personality like Allport's trait theory, Cattell's 16FM, Eysenck's Big Three, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Costa Jr and McCrae (1992) model the Big Five Model (Five Factor Model) is commonly used for personality traits measurement in management and marketing literature. This Five Factor Model is being created after eliminating plenty of adjective to make it more precise with characterization of Five dimensions. However, from the several years this model has been used by many researchers, has constantly used even today attracting attention and trust of the academicians due to its appropriate characteristics. This model involves the five main dimensions of personality that explain an individual. In addition to the preceding research, the Big Five Personality Traits-a composite of five different categories-are also explained in Figure 2 that are Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness (Barrick & Mount, 1991;Landers & Lounsbury, 2006;Rothmann & Coetzer, 2003;Stajkovic et al., 2018).  Goldberg (1990) Extraversion Individuals with an extravagant personality include being talkative, gregarious, socially poised, assertive, leading, outgoing, energetic and cheerful (Barrick & Mount, 1991). The individual with high level of extraversion has obtained stable and positive affect and behaviours. They are very positive regarding future, less vulnerable and very open towards competition (Eysenck, 1981) , not like low level of extraversion who prefer to be alone, less participated in activity, calm and staying at the back with avoidance of stimulation (Lucas & Diener, 2001).

Neuroticism
Individuals with features of Calm, relaxed, satisfied with self, clear cut personality, stresstolerant, pride self on objectivity are highly emotionally stable personality. Traits opposite of this emotional stability behaviour involve negativity for their-self, being worried, anxious, insecure, shy, tense, depressed, and always worry about other opinions present neurotic personality traits (McCrae & Costa, 1987). Individual with low level of emotional stability always tends to unsuccessful to have healthy interactions with people around them (Clark & Watson, 1991).

Openness
Traits used to describe openness to experience personality type include creative, intellectual, analytic, imaginative, open to other people's perspective, adventurous, narrow and have a broad level of intellectual curiosity at the end of continuum. Openness personality always value intellectual stimulus. Comparatively, lees open to experience personalities are associated with conservative, simplicity, indifferent, behaviourally rigid and conformist in their cognition (Dollinger & Orf, 1991;McCrae, 1993).

Conscientiousness
This personality trait commonly categorized as careful, responsible, systematic, selfdisciplined, determined, detailed, highly success ambitious. High conscientiousness personality is eager to achieve their goals. In contrast with this individual who are irresponsible, unplanned, disorganized, poor decision making, easily distracted have lower conscientiousness dimension level (Dollinger & Orf, 1991;McCrae & Costa, 1987).

Agreeableness
Personality involved in this dimension are eager, collaborative, behaves in a given way, sympathetic, warm, straightforward and compassionate. They avoid conflicts and have cooperative manners. Critical, skeptical, behave condescend, hard headed, express hostility directly, tries to push limits and aggressive to others have lesser agreeableness level. When it comes to assessing the quality of one's interpersonal attitude, agreeableness is a personality attribute (e.g. disbelieving vs. believing) (Costa Jr et al., 1991;Graziano & Eisenberg, 1997).

Tourism and Personality
Tourism is highly based on tourist experiences as tourist respond back towards the destinations on the basis of their personality traits. Gretzel et al. (2006) illustrated how tourist personality characteristics may be utilised to promote tourist activities and, consequently, destinations. Furthermore, it has also been demonstrated that tourist roles are supported by tourist personality traits. Within the tourism and hospitality studies, the Big Five model is also regarded to be the most prominent (Leung & Law, 2010;Ying & Norman, 2017). Empirical studies have been conducted concerning the following: travel decision-making (Tsiakali, 2018), tourism information research (Kavenská & Simonová, 2015;Kuo et al., 2016) and tourism destination branding (Kumar & Nayak, 2018;Li & Kaplanidou, 2013). Therefore, it is essential to understand the relationship between personality traits and visitor feelings in the tourism industry (Berno & Ward, 2005). The Big Five model explains significant differences in consumption of emotions (Jani & Han, 2013;Lin et al., 2014), and visitor attitudes (Lee & Tseng, 2015;Moghavvemi et al., 2017).
According to Jani and Han (2013), extraversion influences positive emotions, agreeableness influences both positive and negative emotions, and neuroticism influences negative emotions. Furthermore, it has been stated that the Big Five personality traits play a vital role in predicting tourists' behaviours regarding future intentions (Servidio, 2015) (Servidio, 2015;Vespestad & Mehmetoglu, 2017). However, in the field of tourism, in spite of the importance of visitors' personalities, research concerning the role of tourists' personalities in their emotional stimulation (Larsen, 2018) (Servidio, 2015) and behaviour (Faullant et al., 2011;Jani & Han, 2014a, 2014b) is scarce. Leri and Theodoridis (2020) provide a insight that how attracting visitors effects with high or average personality dimensions of openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, or with low neuroticism. Moreover, past study have indicated that human personality is a major factor affecting marketing communication (Leung & Law, 2010).

Destination Personality
However, for many decades, tourism research has mostly focused on the destination image, academics have paid less attention to destination personality due to the concept's relative novelty in the tourist sector. Distinguishing and substituting destinations based on their functional features reduces their uniqueness and makes them less identifiable. Thus, including extra characteristics for destination personality such as value propositions may aid in distinguishing destinations and attracting travellers. When marketing their branded cities and destinations in a highly competitive tourist sector, destination marketers employ destination personality to distinguish and position their brands. Indeed, destination personality is increasingly being used as a metaphor for marketing and positioning in the tourism industry. Many researchers defined destination personality in different way as shown in Table 1.  (1993) "The symbolic function of a brand whereas brand image refers to both symbolic and functional benefits of a brand" Aaker (1997) "The set of human characteristics associated with a brand" Ekinci and Hosany (2006) "The set of human characteristics associated with a destination as perceived from a tourist view-point". This definition has been framed based on brand personality model.
Based on the study of personality traits, the Big Five model (BFF) is very known. Its five measures are Openness to experience (curious, adventurous), extraversion (emotional, submissive) conscientiousness (self-indulgent, productive), agreeableness (skeptical, critical), and neuroticism (thin-skinned, anxious, irritable). With reference to human personality model, Aaker (1997) developed the Brand Personality Scale (BPS) for the analyzation of product/brand personality attributes (see Figure 3). Since then, this Aaker (1997) scale has been widely used to examining the product/brand personality. Aaker (1997) defines brand personality as "the set of human characteristics associated with a brand". Following this, it can view that consumer perceives the brands as similar to humanlike traits, which is valuable sense to respond a brand emotionally that stimulate their opinions, purchase intension and consumer decision making. Consequently, Consumer feel more intended and supportive towards a brand regarding which they feel personally more relevant and this build positive relationship and leads in customer's trust towards the brand and increases his/her loyalty. Aaker (1997) defined brand personality is the combination of characteristics which are similar to human but associated with product/brand cited in . Youthful, sporty, energetic, outdoorsy or sophisticated can be traits characteristics. This is why, brands are often explained by intangible characteristics. For instance, humanistic characteristic is utilized to describe some brands and products such as "masculine" for Malborow , "Cool" for Coca-Cola and "Young" for Pepsi (Aaker, 1997), "sophistication" for BMW (Phau & Lau, 2000), "unique" in the case of Dr. Pepper, "intelligent" to describe IBM computers, and "feminine" to describe Channel perfumes (Hassan, 2001). Since Aaker (1997) describes five dimensions and fifteen aspects that characterise a brand's personality as traits that are exclusive to humans and are thus attributable to a brand, as seen in Figure 3.This five-factor scale (BPS) includes dimension of "Excitement (which means the characters of full-spirit, trendy, courage, and high imagination, as well as up-to-date in making difference and innovation)"; "Sincerity (which means the characters of honest, humble, down-to-earth, family-oriented, small-town, friendly, sincere, real, original, and simple)"; "Ruggedness (which is the brand characteristic that is associated with the ability, that is the brand characteristic in supporting outdoor activities and the strength or durability of product)" "Competence (which means security, intelligence, tenacity, skill convenience, ability to be reliable and trusted by consumers) and Sophistication (which means characters related to exclusivity that is formed by excellence of prestige, brand image, and attraction offered to customers)".

Method
In order to accomplish the purpose, based on the citation indices and downloads from digital sites and libraries, this research picked 28 noteworthy papers on the issue that were published in the recent 12 years, and then conducted the analysis on them (see Table 2). The academic community generally acknowledges that there is no, definitive and solitary system that emerges as a one-size-fits-all answer for grading papers (McKercher et al., 2006). The journal in which papers were published are shown in Table 2.   (Aaker, 1997) BPS is based on three foundations: firstly, personality measurement scale from psychology, secondly personality scales derived from marketing, lastly unique qualitative research on personality characteristics related with a number of well-known businesses. Along with 42-item BPS, (Aaker, 1997) recommend that theoretical brand personality framework with five dimension is generic and this can apply throughout product categories. Aaker (1997) stated that BPS might not accurately fit across cultures and more research is required to get the stability of these personality dimensions across culture. Above all, research and literature get increased on brand personality (Azoulay & Kapferer, 2003) and numerous studies are conducted by researchers on a variety of product categories and across a variety of cultures using a brand personality framework. Aaker (1997) contribution in this domain of brand personality influence the researchers to study (Geuens et al., 2009). Hence, brand personality influences the development of favorable brand evaluations, brand preferences, brand trust, brand affect, and brand loyalty, as well as the development of brand loyalty (Sung & Kim, 2010) Murphy et al (2007a suggested that in background of brand personality, destination personality also enhances the specification of destinations and make them different, unique and outstanding in comparison with its competitors. Hosany et al. (2006) stated that destination personality signifies with the characteristic of human which is being associated with the touristic destination. In correspondence to this fact products hold customers emotional attachments through having reciprocated characteristics of customers (Fournier, 1998) as cited in (Ye et al., 2012). For the first time, researchers Ekinci and Hosany (2006) examined the validity and application of the brand personality framework for tourism destinations , and they found that the model of BPS could be apply to tourism destination as the tourist relates their personality traits to the destinations. They found that three dimension of brand personality including sincerity, excitement, and conviviality are salient dimensions of the human qualities that are assigned to the destination are referred to as the destination's personality (Chen & Phou, 2013). Sincerity and excitement were revealed to be the two most important elements of destination personality, while conviviality is a newly discovered destination-specific feature. Since, that date till now, the tourism literature getting deep with empirical study of destination personality (Chen & Phou, 2013). Furthermore, destinations are comprehended with destination personalities and characteristics in two ways i.e., direct and indirect. In direct way, characteristics allocation means the perception and assumptions of the visitor based on their experience of destination visit. These characteristic falls in symbolic values and personality traits, which consist of tangible factors (e.g., hotel staff, destination attractions and citizen) connected with specific values, memories, events. Likewise, indirect way contains personality features which includes intangible factors of marketing strategies (e.g., promotion, intellectual properties, value-based pricing to customers, celebrities from the country and mass media). Tourist destinations highly positioned & more distinct, functional attributes must be instigated with additional traits and selling propositions like destination personality to make tourist destinations less substitutable with high spirit of encouraging tourists (Baloglu et al., 2014;Usakli & Baloglu, 2011). In contrast, making destinations highly competitive in tourism market when it comes to marketing and branding of destinations, destination personality is becoming a very useful metaphor (Chen & Phou, 2013). For example, Western Australia brand which symbolizes 'freshness', 'natural', 'spirited' and 'free' (Crockett & Wood, 2004). Scotland brand reflects personality traits such as 'straight ', 'open', 'honest', 'ethical', 'educated', 'competent', 'warm', 'welcoming', 'friendly', 'accessible', with distinctive voices, names, and attitudes (Hamilton, 2000). Henderson (2000), found that New Asia-Singapore brand is composed of personality characteristics such as 'cosmopolitan ', 'youthful', 'vibrant', 'modern', 'reliability', and 'comfort'. Portugal found with personality traits of "traditional", "contemporary", "modern", "sophisticated" in the U.S. travel media. London known as "open-minded", "unorthodox", "vibrant", and "creative" (Hall, 2004), Paris as "romantic" (Morgan & Pritchard, 2002), and Spain as "friendly" and "family oriented" (Gilmore, 2002). A large number of research have been carried out to determine the use of brand personality in the tourist industry (Baloglu et al., 2014;Chi et al., 2018;Gomez Aguilar et al., 2016;Hosany et al., 2006;Hultman et al., 2015;Usakli & Baloglu, 2011;Xie & Lee, 2013;Zeugner-Roth & Žabkar, 2015) and Aaker's BP scale was widely used to measure the destination personality representation e.g.,  Originally, Big Five Factor Model and (Aaker, 1997) brand personality scale developed for product/brand attributes measurement not for destination personality, that is why some personality traits that apply on product brand or person resulted irrelevant for destinations (country). Subsequently, the application of five factors, their significance & stability were not conclusive when applied to cities, countries or destinations in general. Table 3 contains information on the technique, measurement, and dimensions/attributes that influence the destination's personality. The recent literature review of destination personality reveals that to measure destination personality 42-item BPS of Aaker (1997) were used (see Table 3). According to Chen and Phou (2013); Ekinci and Hosany (2006) ; Ekinci et al (2007) found that three dimension of brand personality attributes with (people) personality traits i.e., sincerity (reliable, sincere, intelligent, successful, and wholesome), excitement (exciting, daring, original, and spirited), and conviviality (friendly, familyoriented, charming) are noticeable dimensions of destination personality based on which human characteristics are attributed to the destination. Additionally, sincerity, excitement and conviviality are the most common used dimensions to measure destination personality as shown in table 3. For the quantitative studies, statistical method and for qualitative studies, interview method were used to determine destination personality (see Table 3). The results of the survey methodologies used to determine destination personality revealed that developed countries were the most often examined destination type, followed by cities, and that the majority of data and information was gathered from visitors to particular destinations (see Table 4). Apart from all this still more study & research is required to understand the destination personality role and its importance for destination branding. In spite of the growing body of work on destination branding in general, particularly at a national or country level, little research has been done to determine whether or not tourists attribute tourism destinations with brand personality characteristics and, if so, whether or not this influences their travel behaviour.

Conclusion
Destination personality consider as brand personality in context of tourism literature. This study accomplished a comprehensive evaluation of the literature of destination personality from 2006-2018, synthesizing literature with regards to the concepts, dimensions, and measurements. The review of the more recent destination personality literature reveals that 42-item BPS of (Aaker, 1997)were used to measure destination personality. However, the most noticeable dimensions of destination personality based on which human characteristics are attributed to the destination are sincerity, excitement and conviviality and researchers used these dimensions are most commonly to measure destination personality. These noticeable dimensions of destination personality sincerity and excitement were found to be two main dimensions and conviviality is newly specific to destination.