CONCEPTUALIZATION OF INFLUENCE OF ETHNICITY ON DESTINATION IMAGE AND THE CHOICE SET OF DESTINATION

Fast economic growth of South-East Asian countries leads citizens of this region to take leisure travel more frequently to outside their countries. However, India in spite of geographically and culturally diverse and offer many interesting travel activities, failed to attract significant number of travelers from south-east Asian regions. This situation clearly indicates India is not in their choice set of destinations. Literature argues that destination image is the most important factor in destination choice followed by travel motivations. Early literature reveals that motivations and socioeconomic factors have significant role in destination image formation and recently perceived risk is also considered as another factor. However, authors argue that due to large social diversity in South-East Asian region ethnicity of population should also be considered as important factor influence destination image. Population from a particular ethnic group had close ties with India earlier may hold different image than other ethnic group and may keep India in different set of choice destination than the others. After thorough literature review authors argued that apart from travel motivation and perceived risks, ethnicity of population will also influence destination image. And later, based on image potential travelers will keep a particular destination in early choice set and late choice set of destinations.