A phenomenological approach of blogger's view on cultural distance

Abstract

This paper is intended to determine the influence of cultural distance on the international destination choices by tourists. We adopted a phenomenological approach and data were obtained from 17 bloggers with structured interview form and evaluated by content analysis. We evaluated the research data as three processes, as pre-travel, during travel and post-travel. We identified a tangible and an intangible preparation stage in the pre-travel process. We observed that an increase in cultural distance caused an increase in the destination obscurity and thus in the mental preparation. We found cultural experience, cultural acquisition and personal change themes during traveling. In the meantime, the increase in the geographic distance influences the cultural distance perception. We determined that destinations that are geographically remote (especially the Asian countries) are also culturally remote and interesting. We proposed a model that cultural distance is a moderator variable between travel motivation and destination choice.