1. Abstract
The Destination Personality Scale (DPS-Dest), introduced by Yuksel Ekinci and Sameer Hosany in 2006, represents a seminal psychometric adaptation of Jennifer Aaker's (1997) foundational brand personality framework tailored specifically for tourism destinations and geographical places. Designed to capture the set of human personality traits attributed to tourism destinations by travelers, the scale resolves long-standing conceptual limitations associated with directly transferring commercial product brand frameworks to complex, multifaceted places. Through rigorous exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, Ekinci and Hosany identified a robust three-dimensional structure comprising Sincerity, Excitement, and Conviviality. While Sincerity reflects characteristics such as authenticity, warmth, and a wholesome nature, and Excitement represents vibrant, daring, and spirited attributes, Conviviality emerged as a unique, place-specific dimension capturing friendliness, charm, and social hospitality that does not exist in standard consumer product scales.
The instrument utilizes an 11-item or 27-item profile depending on the version, measured across a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ("Not at all descriptive") to 7 ("Extremely descriptive"). Across multiple empirical validations, the scale has demonstrated superior psychometric properties, including internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach's alpha) typically exceeding 0.70 to 0.85 across all dimensions, excellent convergent and discriminant validity, and strong predictive utility. Specifically, the DPS-Dest has been established as a significant antecedent of tourist self-congruity, perceived destination image, subjective traveler well-being, overall satisfaction, and post-visit behavioral intentions such as recommendation and loyalty. This psychometric assessment tool serves destination marketing organizations (DMOs), hospitality researchers, and tourism strategists seeking to differentiate places in increasingly competitive international travel markets.
2. Keywords
Destination Personality Scale, Brand Personality, Tourism Marketing, Destination Image, Sincerity, Excitement, Conviviality, Self-Congruity Theory, Destination Loyalty, Psychometrics, Scale Development, Place Branding
3. Authors
The Destination Personality Scale was developed and validated by:
- Yuksel Ekinci, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour. Institutional affiliations have included the School of Management at the University of Surrey, Oxford Brookes University Business School, and the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom. His research focuses heavily on consumer psychology, service quality modeling, and brand personality in hospitality and tourism contexts.
- Sameer Hosany, Ph.D. — Professor of Commercial Services Marketing at Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom. His research interests encompass consumer behavior, emotional experiences of tourists, scale development, and destination branding methodologies.
4. Purpose
The primary purpose of the Destination Personality Scale is to measure the human characteristics that travelers associate with tourism destinations and to provide a standardized, psychometrically sound instrument for evaluating place branding. In contemporary consumer behavior, products and services are no longer evaluated purely on functional or utilitarian attributes; rather, consumers assign symbolic meanings, emotional valences, and distinct personality traits to brands. When extended to the domain of geographic tourism, destinations function as complex, multi-attributed umbrella products. However, prior to the development of the DPS-Dest, researchers and practitioners routinely forced commercial product scales onto destinations without accounting for the ontological differences between manufactured consumer goods (e.g., beverages, electronics, automobiles) and living, culturally situated places.
From a research perspective, the scale was created to address the conceptual ambiguity between destination image and destination personality. While destination image encompasses cognitive beliefs (e.g., infrastructural quality, climate, price) and affective feelings (e.g., pleasantness, distress) toward a place, destination personality focuses exclusively on the anthropomorphic characterizations of the destination. Establishing this distinction allows empirical researchers to model structural relationships involving tourist self-concept, self-congruity (the degree of match between the visitor's self-concept and the destination's perceived personality), emotional attachment, and behavioral loyalty. Theoretically, understanding these dimensions explains why travelers choose specific destinations over functionally equivalent alternatives.
From a practical and strategic management standpoint, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) operate in hyper-competitive global environments where natural landscapes, pristine beaches, and modern hotel accommodations can easily be substituted or commodified. The DPS-Dest provides DMOs with a diagnostic benchmarking instrument to assess current visitor perceptions, track brand equity over longitudinal periods, design targeted promotional campaigns, and identify perceptual gaps between intended brand positioning and actual traveler experiences. By identifying whether a destination is predominantly perceived as sincere, exciting, or convivial, managers can craft differentiated value propositions that foster intense symbolic and emotional resonance with target demographic segments.
5. Psychological Construct
The Destination Personality Scale is constructed as a multidimensional, reflective psychometric instrument capturing three distinct domains of anthropomorphized place traits. These traits reflect how consumers project human qualities onto physical geographical environments, cultural ecosystems, and local populations:
Sincerity
The Sincerity dimension reflects the perceived authenticity, genuineness, wholesomeness, and moral integrity of the destination. Rooted in basic human social judgments regarding warmth and trustworthiness, Sincerity captures the sense that a destination is down-to-earth, honest, reliable, and unpretentious. In tourism environments, sincere destinations project historical preservation, cultural transparency, and an absence of excessive artificiality or aggressive commercialization. For instance, rural landscapes, historic cultural enclaves, or national parks that emphasize heritage and preservation are consistently rated high on Sincerity by travelers seeking solace, grounding, and wholesome natural rejuvenation.
Excitement
The Excitement dimension encompasses attributes associated with energy, vitality, daringness, innovation, and contemporary spirit. Derived from arousal theory and sensation-seeking psychology, this construct measures the degree to which a destination stimulates positive hedonic affect, thrill, imaginative thinking, and modern vibrancy. Destinations scoring high on Excitement are typically perceived as active, fashionable, dynamic, and forward-looking. Examples include bustling global metropolises, extreme adventure sports hubs, and vibrant cultural entertainment epicenters (such as Las Vegas, Tokyo, or Queenstown) that evoke intense emotional stimulation and novel sensations among tourists seeking disruption from mundane routines.
Conviviality
Conviviality represents the most distinctive theoretical and empirical contribution of the DPS-Dest. Absent from Aaker's original corporate brand personality framework, Conviviality emerged organically from tourism-specific qualitative and quantitative inquiries. It reflects the social warmth, hospitableness, community friendliness, family-oriented nature, and welcoming charm inherent in the interaction between tourists and the host population. Because tourism is inherently experiential, relational, and interpersonal, travelers do not simply evaluate a destination as an inanimate physical product; they evaluate the social encounters, smiles, approachability, and collective temperament of the local community. A destination exhibiting high Conviviality fosters an atmosphere where visitors feel instantly embraced, emotionally safe, and integrated into local communal life.
6. Theoretical Framework
The theoretical architecture of the Destination Personality Scale rests on three foundational pillars: Anthropomorphism, Aaker's (1997) Brand Personality Framework, and Self-Congruity Theory pioneered by M. Joseph Sirgy (1982).
Anthropomorphism and Trait Theory
Psychologically, anthropomorphism involves the universal human cognitive tendency to project human behaviors, intentions, and emotional characteristics onto non-human entities, objects, and geographical places. In marketing and consumer psychology, this tendency allows brands to be conceptualized as active relationship partners. When applied to tourism, travelers naturally describe locations using interpersonal personality descriptors (e.g., "Paris is romantic and sophisticated," "New York is ambitious and relentless," "Ireland is friendly and sincere"). The DPS-Dest operationalizes these anthropomorphic trait projections into measurable quantitative constructs aligned with personality psychology.
Adaptation of Aaker's (1997) Brand Personality Framework
Jennifer Aaker developed the seminal Brand Personality Scale (BPS), identifying five fundamental dimensions: Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness. While Aaker's model demonstrated immense validity for commercial packaged goods and consumer electronics, Ekinci and Hosany recognized that destinations operate under distinct social, spatial, and psychological dynamics. Through rigorous scale purification, the authors discovered that "Competence" and "Ruggedness" did not replicate robustly across destination contexts, whereas the socio-relational nature of host-guest interactions necessitated a localized dimension. The DPS-Dest therefore refined Aaker's framework, retaining Sincerity and Excitement while introducing Conviviality to reflect the experiential essence of hospitality.
Self-Congruity Theory
The ultimate theoretical rationale for measuring destination personality is Sirgy's (1982) Self-Congruity Theory. According to this paradigm, consumer decision-making is heavily governed by the psychological drive to maintain, protect, and enhance one's self-concept. Self-congruity occurs when the psychological attributes of a destination correspond to the tourist's actual self-image ("This place is like who I am") or ideal self-image ("This place represents who I aspire to be"). High self-congruence reduces cognitive dissonance, generates positive emotional attachment, enhances overall trip satisfaction, and acts as a powerful driver of destination loyalty and word-of-mouth advocacy.
7. Validity
The Destination Personality Scale has undergone comprehensive empirical validation across diverse geographical contexts and cultural samples:
- Content and Face Validity: Initial item generation involved an exhaustive review of Aaker's 42 brand personality traits, supplemented by qualitative content analyses of travel guides, brochures, tourist diaries, and expert panel reviews by tourism scholars to ensure items were natural, non-pejorative, and descriptive of physical places.
- Construct and Convergent Validity: In Ekinci and Hosany's (2006) foundational study of British travelers evaluating European destinations, confirmatory factor analyses verified that all standardized factor loadings were statistically significant (p < 0.001) and substantial (loadings generally exceeding 0.60 to 0.80). The average variance extracted (AVE) for Sincerity, Excitement, and Conviviality consistently met or exceeded the recommended 0.50 threshold, establishing strong convergent validity.
- Discriminant Validity: Discriminant validity was empirically substantiated using the Fornell-Larcker criterion. The square root of the AVE for each latent construct consistently exceeded the inter-construct correlations between Sincerity, Excitement, and Conviviality. Furthermore, nested model comparisons confirmed that single-factor and two-factor models exhibited significantly worse fit than the hypothesized three-factor oblique model.
- Predictive and Nomological Validity: Structural equation modeling demonstrated that the three destination personality dimensions exhibited significant positive paths to perceived destination image, self-congruity, tourist satisfaction, and future intention to recommend. Sincerity and Conviviality routinely emerge as primary predictors of emotional comfort and affective attachment, whereas Excitement drives cognitive differentiation and novelty seeking.
8. Reliability
The DPS-Dest exhibits high psychometric reliability and internal consistency across diverse cross-cultural consumer samples:
- Internal Consistency: In the original validation studies by Ekinci and Hosany (2006), Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the three subscales comfortably exceeded the traditional 0.70 benchmark established by Nunnally: Sincerity achieved alpha values ranging between 0.78 and 0.84; Excitement demonstrated alphas between 0.82 and 0.88; and Conviviality produced alphas ranging from 0.74 to 0.81.
- Composite Reliability: Confirmatory structural models have yielded composite reliability (CR) scores consistently exceeding 0.80 across all three latent dimensions, confirming that the measurement items reliably reflect their respective theoretical constructs without excessive random error variance.
- Cross-Sample Stability: Subsequent cross-national replications (e.g., studies evaluating destinations in Asia, North America, and the Mediterranean) have demonstrated consistent internal consistency parameters, affirming that the three-factor structure remains stable across varied tourist nationalities, trip typologies, and geographic settings.
9. Factor Analysis
The structural composition of the Destination Personality Scale was established through a two-stage psychometric protocol involving Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA):
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
During the exploratory phase, an initial pool of candidate personality adjectives was administered to an empirical calibration sample of international travelers. Principal Component Analysis with Varimax (orthogonal) and Promax (oblique) rotations was performed. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy consistently exceeded 0.85, and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity was statistically significant (p < 0.001). Items with low communalities (< 0.40), low primary loadings (< 0.50), or significant cross-loadings (> 0.35 on secondary factors) were systematically eliminated. This process yielded a clean, parsimonious three-factor solution accounting for over 60% of the total cumulative variance.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
The dimensional stability was subsequently evaluated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis on independent holdout samples. The measurement model demonstrated excellent goodness-of-fit indices:
- Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values consistently reached between 0.94 and 0.97, well above the acceptable 0.90 standard.
- Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Coefficients ranged from 0.93 to 0.96.
- Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Maintained desirable thresholds between 0.045 and 0.065 (with 90% confidence intervals below 0.08).
- Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Values remained below 0.05.
- Factor Loadings: Standardized regression weights for all indicators were highly significant (p < 0.001), ranging from 0.62 to 0.89, confirming clear factor saturation.
10. Instrument / Measurement Tool
The Destination Personality Scale is formatted as a structured, self-administered questionnaire. Key operational parameters include:
- Instrument Type: Self-report psychometric rating scale.
- Format: Quantitative multi-item semantic battery.
- Response Scale: 7-point Likert-type intensity scale (1 = "Not at all descriptive", 2 = "Very slightly descriptive", 3 = "Slightly descriptive", 4 = "Moderately descriptive", 5 = "Substantially descriptive", 6 = "Very descriptive", 7 = "Extremely descriptive").
- Dimensional Structure: Three correlated first-order factors:
- Sincerity: Measures perceived authenticity, warmth, down-to-earth character, and ethical wholesomeness.
- Excitement: Measures dynamic energy, daringness, contemporary flair, and imaginative appeal.
- Conviviality: Measures social hospitality, community friendliness, and welcoming interpersonal warmth.
- Scoring Protocol: Composite scores for each dimension are calculated by averaging the response ratings across the indicators assigned to that specific subscale. Higher mean scores indicate stronger attribution of that personality trait to the focal destination. Researchers may also model the dimensions as latent variables within structural equation modeling (SEM) software.
- Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 7 minutes to complete.
11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year
The Destination Personality Scale was officially published in 2006 by Yuksel Ekinci and Sameer Hosany in the Journal of Travel Research (Volume 45, Issue 2). The scale was developed under academic research protocols and is protected under standard academic copyright laws governed by SAGE Publications and the original authors.
For non-commercial academic research, university dissertations, and scholarly empirical investigations, the scale can generally be utilized without royalty fees, provided proper formal bibliographic attribution is cited in all publications and presentations. Commercial entities, market research agencies, and Destination Marketing Organizations seeking to utilize the scale for proprietary consulting, commercial benchmarking, or revenue-generating campaigns should contact the copyright holder (SAGE Publications) or the original authors (Yuksel Ekinci and Sameer Hosany) to secure formal permissions and licensing terms.
12. References
- Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(3), 347–356. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379703400304
- Ekinci, Y., & Hosany, S. (2006). Destination personality: An application of brand personality to tourism destinations. Journal of Travel Research, 45(2), 127–139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287506291603
- Hosany, S., Ekinci, Y., & Uysal, M. (2006). Destination image and destination personality: An application of branding theories to tourism destinations. Journal of Business Research, 59(5), 638–642. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2006.01.001
- Sirgy, M. J. (1982). Self-concept in consumer behavior: A critical review. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(3), 287–300. https://doi.org/10.1086/208924
- Usakli, A., & Baloglu, S. (2011). Brand personality of tourist destinations: An application of self-congruity theory. Tourism Management, 32(1), 114–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2010.01.002